August 20, 2025

Donald Trump posted on social media that he will lead an effort to ban mail-in ballots and unspecified voting equipment in advance of the 2026 midterms. Even worse, he made clear that he will issue an executive order directing states to defer to him “in counting and tabulating the votes.”

Trump’s announcement is not a minor political stunt or a passing outburst from a man known for incendiary rhetoric. This is a clear and direct threat to free and fair elections and, more fundamentally, to democracy itself. It should be front-page news, dominating headlines and sparking wall-to-wall outrage and condemnation from political leaders, civic institutions and everyday Americans.

Yet, the legacy media treats it as just another day in Trump’s bizarro-world soap opera, while the business community just wants to make sure it doesn't interfere with them counting their money.

If the billionaire class won’t sound the alarm, and the Big Law firms are too afraid to act, then I will do both. 

Trump is insisting that he can decide which voting machines work, which ballots should be discarded and, ultimately, which votes count. His goal is simple: he wants to control who controls Congress. While attacking voter rolls and suppressing the vote are central to his plan, his fallback — his ace in the hole — is insisting that he can direct states on the “counting and tabulating the votes.”

The timing of his announcement was no coincidence. Only hours before making his social media post, he had met with Vladimir Putin. In his most recent “election,” Putin claimed over 88 percent of the vote, while his nearest “competitor” supposedly received less than 5 percent.

Rather than see Putin for what he is (a dictator), Trump sees him as a role model. Unsurprisingly, after the meeting, Trump claimed that Putin privately assured him that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.

But even Putin does not admit to controlling and rigging the vote counting. In fact, he denies it. Trump, however, does not bother with such pretenses. In this sense, Trump’s vibe is more Joseph Stalin, who infamously said, “I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.”

Trump’s obsession with controlling vote counting is not new. Nor is his desire to issue an executive order to accomplish it.

In December 2020, when it was clear his legal efforts to overturn the election had failed, he began considering acting via executive order. A draft order, dated December 16, 2020, cited constitutional and statutory powers he did not have to justify seizing voting machines.

It ordered the Secretary of Defense to “seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records” related to the Georgia election. It also would have appointed election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell as “Special Counsel to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate based on the evidence collected and provided all resources necessary to carry out her duties consistent with federal laws and the Constitution.”

The fact that such a draft order even existed shows how close the country came to a constitutional crisis. The only reason it was never signed?

Trump’s own Attorney General, William Barr, and other senior officials refused to go along with the scheme. Barr, hardly a hero of the resistance, nonetheless stated publicly that there was “no basis now for seizing machines by the federal government.”

Today, the guardrails are gone. Trump has surrounded himself with advisors who are not reluctant lawyers or cautious bureaucrats but sycophants and true believers — conspiracists who deny the 2020 results and who are eager to please him no matter how extreme the request. They understand that their power depends not on the law, but on being the most loyal person to Trump in the room.

When the time comes, Trump will insist that the Department of Defense seize voting equipment and ballots. With national guardsmen and active military already in place, that will be an easier task.

He will demand that the Department of Justice arrest pro-democracy advocates and Democratic voters. With masked agents working for a lawless attorney general and a sycophantic FBI director, this will proceed with brutal efficiency.

If he wants the spectacle of a special counsel, any number of unethical lawyers stand at the ready to do his bidding.

This is not wild speculation. He is already exacting “retribution” against political opponents. He is already disregarding the law and the Constitution. Now he is telling us that his next target will be to control our elections.

And yet, despite the urgency, the institutions that should be defending democracy seem paralyzed. Why isn’t the legacy media covering this story as the existential crisis that it is? Why isn’t every large law firm pledging to stand up and defend democracy? Why aren’t civic leaders and business executives offering their support for the most basic American right — the right to vote?

The truth is that many of these institutions are afraid. Some fear Trump’s wrath. Others worry about losing business or political influence. 

If the institutions built to protect democracy remain silent, then the burden falls on ordinary citizens, pro-democracy advocates and independent voices willing to speak up. That is why I am writing this — because, for me, silence is not an option.

Donald Trump wants us to grow numb to these attacks. But numbness is itself a form of complicity. He wants us to remain silent in fear. But silence normalizes the unacceptable. He wants us to feel hopeless. But hope is our greatest tool to fight dictatorship. 

The warning signs are flashing. The alarm bells are ringing. The question is not whether Trump means what he says. The question is whether we will take him seriously enough to stop him before it is too late.