Late Saturday night, shortly before 1:00 a.m., Donald Trump was awake. Embroiled in a foreign war and overseeing a slowing economy showing signs of rising inflation, Trump took to social media to address the only issue "people care about" — urging Congress to pass the anti-voting bill known as the Save America Act.

Since January, the bill — which would make it harder to register to vote and impose strict voter identification requirements — has been an obsession of the president. Though he rarely speaks about the potential criminal penalties for election workers or the forced voter purges the bill would enable, his supporters in the anti-voting movement are surely aware of the damage it would do to free and fair elections.

When Trump woke the following morning, the Save America Act was still on his mind — and apparently on his television. Inspired by a segment on “Fox & Friends,” he again posted on social media that Senate Republicans needed to pass the bill, even if it meant weakening the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has already said publicly that he lacks the votes to accomplish this legislative maneuver, but Trump is either unconvinced or simply doesn't care.

To underscore his seriousness, Trump added a new twist to his usual threats: "I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed." It is unclear who this was intended to influence. After all, it is the president who stands the most to lose from grinding the legislative process to a halt while his party controls both chambers of Congress. Especially during a midterm year. 

Further complicating Thune's position, Trump made it clear that he would not be satisfied with the version of the Save America Act narrowly passed by the House last month — a bill he derisively dismissed as "the watered-down version."

Instead, Trump is demanding that congressional Republicans deliver a version that would also ban nearly all mail-in voting and target transgender individuals. If that last provision seems new, you haven't been paying close enough attention.

Trump first linked a restriction on the transgender community to the voter suppression bill on Thursday, also via social media. The legacy media initially professed confusion, but the White House soon confirmed the president's position: limitations on transgender rights must be added to the Save America Act.

Trump also suggested that, if necessary, this new, non-watered-down version of the bill must come "at the expense of everything else" Congress might otherwise consider. His message to congressional Republicans was unambiguous: set everything else aside and focus solely on this.

It has become fashionable to suggest that Trump is doing one thing to distract from another. People half-jokingly claim he started the war with Iran to distract from the Epstein Files, or to shift focus from the economy or his sagging poll numbers.

Some will no doubt see a similar pattern here, arguing that Trump added the mail-in voting ban and the anti-trans provisions merely as a distraction from his other political troubles.

But that interpretation misses the centrality of election denialism to the MAGA movement.

Donald Trump cares about power more than any specific policy. Rigging the rules of elections is the most direct path to gaining and maintaining that power. Individual policies may come and go, but in his mind, voter suppression and election subversion are proven, reliable tools.

Trump's immediate problem is a congressional GOP growing restless as his approval ratings plummet and Republican senators' own electoral prospects begin to dim. Those senators have little appetite for dismantling one of their own most powerful procedural weapons — the filibuster — only to follow Trump off an electoral cliff.

The only response Trump knows is escalation — hence the new provisions targeting the transgender community and the threat to stall all other legislation. His calculation is that raising the stakes will shake up the congressional dynamics in his favor.

The good news is that this strategy is unlikely to work. To start with, while Trump may claim otherwise, vote by mail is popular. Trump's approach may energize his base, but his antics will actually make it more difficult for vulnerable Republicans to support the bill.

Republican senators are political opportunists, but also political survivors. They know that blowing up the filibuster on behalf of a deeply unpopular package of voting restrictions and culture-war provisions is a losing proposition.

This does not mean that those of us who support free and fair elections should rest easy. Trump has proven that he will find new tactics and escalate fights when he is threatened.

Though the SAVE America Act is likely dead, Trump’s threat to issue an unconstitutional executive order remains. His Department of Justice continues to pursue access to unredacted voter files. And Republicans at the state and local level continue to enact anti-voting laws and policies.

With eight months until the midterms, all of these fights remain ahead of us. Now is the time to do the hard work of protecting them.

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