If you think that Donald Trump will be satisfied after passing the SAVE America Act into law, think again. If you believe he has principled objections to our current system of voting, consider the evidence. If you think there is a compromise between his position and those of us fighting for free and fair elections, you misunderstand the nature of the threat to our democracy.

The critical failure of the legacy media and most of our large institutions is their refusal to accept that Donald Trump is an authoritarian. He craves power for power's sake. He has no core convictions other than to govern and rule without constraints.

He has no friends — only enablers and sycophants. He rewards loyalty above competence, devotion above truth. He despises his enemies and targets those who stand up to him with hate and retribution.

Like most aspiring dictators, Trump is both attracted to elections and repelled by them. He loves the affirmation and legitimacy that come from victory. He is terrified of the immense shame that comes with being the object of scorn resulting from a GOP defeat.

He knows he lost the popular vote in 2016. He knows he was soundly defeated in 2020.

But worse, he is bracing for a repeat of 2018, when a blue wave swept the country on the back of his unpopularity. Democrats gained 41 seats in the House. Nancy Pelosi regained her speaker's gavel. A year later, he was impeached for the first time.

To suffer a similar fate in 2026 would mean the end of his absolute power and an even worse humiliation than he suffered before. His behavior has grown more erratic, his statements more untethered from reality, his capacity to absorb setbacks more brittle.

That is why, last spring, he was already fixated on rigging the midterm elections through extreme gerrymandering. By the end of summer, he was already talking about the need to control the counting and tabulation of ballots.

By October, Trump was insisting that all forms of voting — except in person on Election Day — be banned. "No mail-in or 'Early' Voting. Yes to Voter ID!" he declared on social media.

But the real panic set in for Trump in January. A combination of failed policies, sagging polls, and the reality that the midterm elections were less than a year away caused Trump to send the Republican voter suppression and election subversion war machine into action.

First, Trump told The New York Times that he wished he had seized ballots after the 2020 election. Then he called for the GOP to take over voting in 15 places. He repeated his false claim that states are agents of the federal government for the counting and tabulation of votes. He even mused that he wished there were no midterm elections at all.

All of this happened while the Department of Justice demanded that states hand over their most sensitive voter data — and then sued the 30 states that refused. Those states were right to refuse. Complying would have meant betraying the privacy of hundreds of millions of Americans.

In January, the SAVE Act was transformed into the SAVE America Act — an even worse voter suppression bill that targets voter registration, voting by mail, election workers and the private information of individual citizens.

Now, as Congress prepares to debate this sweeping new voter suppression law, Trump has come full circle and called for an outright ban on no-excuse absentee voting. He has already said that, regardless of what Congress does, he will attempt to impose new voting restrictions by executive order.

Last year, when Trump tried to assert control over the rules of voting, my law firm sued him and won. A federal judge made clear that the president has no role in setting the rules for voting or administering elections. But that will not stop Trump from trying again.

Nor are the court fights behind us. Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case brought by the RNC challenging the ability of states to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received afterward.

This is only one of several cases in which the GOP is trying to make mail-in voting more difficult and the rejection of mail-in ballots more routine. Ironically, the RNC's position today is at odds with what it argued in 2000, when George W. Bush won the presidency in part because Florida counted mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

Meanwhile, the DOJ's lawsuits grind along, consuming time and resources that could be spent preparing for the midterm elections. Recent filings make clear that the DOJ also hopes to bring this issue before the Supreme Court ahead of November.

Donald Trump does not want free or fair elections — he just wants to win at any cost. Republicans have no agenda for the fall other than voter suppression and election subversion.

I do not seek to compromise with Republicans on voting rights because there can be no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist. Donald Trump and the Republican Party want to burn our democracy to the ground. We must stop them.