On January 13, 2019, nearly 10 months before what would become the first violent attempt in American history to overthrow the results of a presidential election with the full blessing of the incumbent president who refused to accept his defeat, I wrote in this space the following while awaiting the outcome of the Robert Mueller investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 election:
“So what will they do, these Republicans, if Mr. Mueller presents conclusive evidence…that the president of the United States willfully and repeatedly sought the assistance of and, in return, provided succor to, a longtime nemesis of his own country? I think I know, absent a meaningful Republican abandonment of their bespoiled standard bearer, what Mr. Trump would do. He would, following true to the form that has dictated every move of his presidency, fight it for all he is worth, refusing to step aside, blaming everyone else, encouraging his dwindled but still menacing base to take to the streets in protest, defiance and very possibly much more.
I wish I could claim some brilliance as a prognosticator for those words, but if Donald Trump has shown us anything over the years, if he has clearly expressed and acted on one abiding principle that undergirds his entire life, it is that he will do anything, malign and destroy anybody, use all possible means, legal or not, to advance his purposes and bend others to his will in business, politics and life.
That is the script he has written and followed with singular and savage intensity, which he has never—and likely will never—change.
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So here we are, more than halfway through 2026 and staring at the nearly always consequential mid-term elections come November. The president schedules a special prime time address to the American people, an occasion usually reserved for grave matters of state, such as economic or natural catastrophes, wars or attacks on our nation.
How about dispatching the military en masse to keep a close eye on polling locations across the country, with the heaviest concentration in Democratic and minority congressional districts?
To hear him tell it, the president was meeting that high bar by discussing a topic that should furrow the brow of every American, due to the “irrefutable facts” that our elections are hopelessly compromised, fraudulent, and in ever-increasing danger of falling deeper into the clutches of rogue actors such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Aided, even more troublingly, by a “deep state” internal bureaucracy that includes law enforcement, the courts, media companies, and universities. (And, of course, any Democrat who ever wins an election—particularly against him.)
The president’s 25-minute address led off with the customary four and a half minutes of campaign-style exaggerations and outright lies touting his self-perceived “greatest” this, “highest” that, the “best-ever” over yonder. America, the “dead” and crime-ravaged country of 2024, now the “hottest” in the whole world. (A climate change concern? No, “hot” as in sexy, desirable, a “catch.”)
The whole world, it seems, envies us and wants to come live under his very, very strong, protective arms. (Except Canadians, Brits, the Irish, French and Germans, the Greenlanders, and a few other chronic malcontents.)
“We are likewise winning big in Iran,” he said, staring straight into the camera.
The self-congratulations and puffery out of the way, we get to why we are gathered here tonight: the subject of “free and fair elections.”
Dark warnings pour forth for the next 20 minutes, featuring…
“shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure…the largest compromise of election data in history…China’s sinister election meddling (that) members of the Deep State—a very, very famous group of people, in many cases….worked to actively suppress and downplay.”
And this bit of incomprehensibility, which is worth quoting in full, if only because he read it from a teleprompter, which means someone in his administration wrote it for him, thought it was important, and seriously considered the best, most effective way to convey it to the American people in a major televised address.
“Other officials who witnessed such efforts perceived the motivations to be blatantly political. Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags information, and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information, given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned, it was supposed to be burned. These bags were supposed to be at a different level by different people, incinerated and checked, but it never happened. Maybe we got lucky. We believe this was not done on purpose, but rather through gross incompetence of the people that were supposed to burn the bags. But the findings are stunning.”
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On and on it went, most of it either pure hokum, highly misleading or long discredited by his own intelligence agencies and the multiple cabinet members and legislators from his first term who dared to tell him the truth and suffered for their sins by no longer having jobs.
His Thursday night tirade against our corrupt electoral system was also oblivious to the bare fact that somehow, he was voted rather handily into office anyway in 2024, as was the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives, giving him a trifecta of control that is the envy of every incoming president.
Given the failure of the dark powers both foreign and domestic to sway the 2024 election to his opponent and one court decision after another finding zero basis for his continuing refusal to accept his loss in 2020, why use a presidential address to instill fear in the American population that their vote will perhaps be fatally defrauded this time ’round?
The same reason, I would answer, for his appointments of virtual lapdogs obviously forced to pledge undying loyalty to him and him alone as a job qualification to positions of attorney general, homeland security director, national intelligence director, FBI director, etc. All of them have demonstrated that loyalty by fervently doing his bidding in pursuing his perceived domestic enemies, no matter how flimsy and quickly discredited or dismissed the charges have been.
“We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved… We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The words, infamous now, are Trump’s from the morning of January 6, 2021, his very soul laid bare in a last desperate attempt to reverse the decision of American voters to oust him from the presidency.
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These six years later, it is only by the most extreme mental gymnastics that one can avoid the suspicion that Trump and his entire puppet cabinet, utterly devoid of truth-tellers and united in their willingness to do and say anything that His Eminence commands, are preparing to “fight like hell” and do whatever it takes to ensure that the mid-term election will not result in a Democratic majority in either the House or Senate.
Trump, his personal wealth now bulging with an extra $2.2 billion accrued barely 19 months into his term from staggeringly unethical if not criminal activity, is understandably terrified that Democrats will hit the ground running with investigations into gambits that represent such laughable conflicts of interest as would have led to immediate impeachment proceedings in any previous administration. All of which makes it difficult to imagine that his terror and survival instinct will not result in drastic measures, the likes of which “we have never seen before,” to prevent that development.
What might those efforts look like?
How about dispatching the military en masse to keep a close eye on polling locations across the country, with the heaviest concentration in Democratic and minority congressional districts?
Those troops demanding that anyone with dark skin produce papers to verify their eligibility to vote or to be in the country at all?
Declaring an “electoral emergency” to justify the above, or even to delay or cancel the election altogether based upon “secret intelligence” that Chinese or North Korean saboteurs had seized near fatal control of our electoral system?
Or perhaps, as incoming election results that night indicate key Democratic wins in House and Senate races, sending the military or homeland security troops to seize ballots in “disputed” locations across the land, the president declaring a “state of emergency” that brings a halt to the entire election, pending review? Trump drafted just such an order in 2020 but was talked down from it, which he later told the “New York Times” that he regretted not following through on.
Unlikely fantasies?
What of this president’s actions for total control of everything in his orbit would have been “likely” in virtually any other previous administration since 1776?
Who, prior to 2016, could have predicted the incoming president would later refuse to leave office and inspire an insurrection to stay in that office illegally a mere four years later?
When has Donald Trump ever relented in his efforts to never lose, never admit defeat, and never reach a bottom of depraved behavior that he will readily embrace to avoid such a fate?
That is what lies at the bottom of his speech Thursday night, and his appointments of manifestly incompetent acolytes to key positions in his administration. And of his attacks on the press, his ongoing attempts at voter suppression, his endless relitigations of the 2020 election.
All of it setting the stage for “never giving up, never conceding, fighting like hell” to reshape the country in his own image as the glaring, domineering, omnipotent master of the universe that he has always longed to be.
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“You gave me fortune, you gave me fame, you gave me power, in your God’s name…”
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Well, Andrew, I believe that you have scored a 10.0 landing on where this is all headed. I am currently well into Haberman and Swan’s Regime Change book and their inside-the-situation room and thousands of interviews perspectves would not think about questioning your view. Nor would I. All potential previously unthinkable scenarios you suggest for the midterm elections are not only possible. They are, if needed for Trump and acolytes to win, likely to happen. Watching confirmation hearings for AG, et al, made clear that Dear Leader has identified necessary lap dogs to place in key positions. Republicans will no doubt vote to confirm and the suffocation of our constitutional republic will move closer to a last gasp.
I was hoping you would point out the holes in my argument, Jay. Thanks a lot, pal…
I have no doubt all this will be tried, as you say, if and as it is deemed necessary. What we may ultimately have to rely on are 1) the courts, which were almost unanimous last time on denying blatant electoral violations even as the Supes seem to be vesting the presidency with ever more unitary “power,” and 2) the sheer incompetence of so many lapdogs in positions of power, constantly overplaying their hand while being egged on by their would-be king, whose only speed is violently, crashingly forward. Sometimes that’s sufficient, but history is replete with the charred, hung, and beheaded remains of despots who never paused to consider whether enough was finally enough…
Traditionally, and reasonably, reliance on the courts could provide some reassurance. But as we’ve witnessed with The Supremes and the DOJ , no moral compass or rule-of-law precedent seem to matter. King Don has perhaps already outflanked all safeguards. By the way, did you somehow join Haberman and Swan in their investigation and research for their book, Regime Change?
This gives me the willies, and if things turn to go in this direction I’m not sure American voters are well enough informed to separate fact from fiction. I know his base will follow him into hell, but will independents and moderates finally say enough already? I wish I was more confident about that.
I’m with you, Jonathon. I have little confidence in the level of understanding or concern held by the electorate. I’ve heard too many express their lack of interest in politics, as if it were something abstract and not related to our collective well being and future.For Trump’s base, he can never go too low or too far. Millions of others are sleepwalking and apathetic. Scary business, to be sure.
The polls would suggest as much, Jonathan, and this re-escalation of the Iran War sure wouldn’t appear to be helping him…
Andrew, what are your thoughts on the TV networks deciding not to carry a Presidential address to the nation?
On a similar note, our local Press Democrat Editorial Editor has begun “fact correcting” Letters to the Editor. I can understand editing them for length, and they should definitely report the news accurately, but….
That’s pretty interesting, Gerry; I hadn’t seen that. Lots of magazines allow writers to respond to letters, particularly when the letter writer is highly critical of one thing or other, but I’ve seen it only rarely in newspapers, in special circumstances. Traditionally, they’ve left it up to other readers to write correctives to facts, using the logic that the editor has all the other words in the publication, so this space belongs to readers alone. I think I fall more into the latter camp, but now I’m interested to give the page a look and see how they’re doing it. I do get the publication online, but rarely make it that far in!
As for whether networks should be obligated to carry presidential addresses: like so many other matters through these two Trump terms, the media have never dealt with the countless conundrums he sends their way, this being one of them. It’s a complicated question, I think, which could and probably should be approached from multiple angles. Let me spend some time thinking about this and be back to you—I’d actually be interested in where I wind up with it. BTW: I almost dropped you a note with this post to ask you to be your generally optimistic self and put a brighter spin on things, for my sanity, at the very least!
I didn’t watch Trump’s Thursday night’s prime time tirade. That afternoon, while grocery shopping, I saw a little boy throwing a tantrum in the dessert aisle because his mom refused to buy him a Fudgesicle. I had my tantrum fix for the day. Instead of watching Trump whine, I opted to fill my hours with “Dr. Strangelove”, a far more optimistic view of America’s future. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine Trump sitting at the Resolute desk saying, “Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face? Do you realize that at this moment the Chinese are fluoridating our water? Why, there are Chinese studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk… ice cream–children’s ice cream!” Man, substitute “election fraud” for fluoridation, and you’ve got Trump doing a spot-on impersonation of General Jack D. Ripper.
Drew, I am impressed with your 2019 prognostication of the possibility of a January 6th. Unfortunately, your March Madness picks seldom follow suit.
This morning I went back into my Word documents on Trump and found this. I wrote a week or so after the riot:
For an eternal optimist like me to regard this nation’s democracy as dying is a hard pill to swallow. One Republican congressman even compared January 6th to a typical weekend at the Capitol. Mark my words, it will get worse. Voter restriction laws will be enacted in every state. The G in GOP will stand for “Gerrymandering”. Central to his strategy will be racism. He already calls Haiti and African nations “shithole countries” He’ll be scapegoating people of color like Hitler did Jews. Hell, January 6th is our Kristallnacht. How will his fellow Republicans respond? They’ll bury their heads in the sand and erase all images of that day from their memory bank. It’s disgusting. Frankly, this Republican Party poses more of a threat to democracy than Trump and all of his Proud Boy and QAnon followers combined. No doubt Trump’s the catalyst, but our democracy has been on the verge of a breakdown for some time now. It’s like a slow leak that suddenly bursts. Tuesday, November 3rd will be telling. Plumbers will need to vote in numbers!
Once upon a post-WWII time the U.S. was viewed as the relatively undisputed leader of the free world. At least since 2022, the Democracy Index, published by the British media company the Economist Group, has ranked the U.S. (along with Hungary, Poland, Israel, and others) as a flawed democracy, not a full democracy like the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Japan and 20 other countries. If what you prophecy about the November election proves accurate, Andrew, I imagine our ranking will slip into the hybrid regime territory that Turkey, Uganda, and El Salvador occupy, though given his admiration for outright dictators, Donald would probably prefer a full-blown authoritarian ranking (think China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia).
Robert, you offer a sober reminder here about the surpassing strangeness of Dr. Strangelove—which I saw only once many years ago and really should revisit—and the even stranger fact of our collective failure of imagination in this country to see the likes of Trump ever elevated to the presidency. The artists sure did, though—Orwell, Sinclair Lewis, Yeats, Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Czesław Miłosz, “Network,” “A Face in the Crowd,” “The Great Dictator.” One could put together quite the film-literary festival on that theme, though I suspect “festive” would not be the operative term…
David, keeping to our “strange” theme above, who could have predicted that an American president, rather than hiding any deeply felt identification with authoritarian rulers for fear of how voters would respond, instead does nothing to suppress his admiration for them, going out of his way to shower his “close friends” in Russia, China, North Korea with praise for how effective they are in ruling their countries? And for the “love notes” they send to him. (Good God, man!!) All while frequently denouncing allies (Canada, Britain, the entire EU & NATO) and hearing nary a peep from either supposedly “America First” Republican politicians or MAGA voters. Talk about dystopian! The more I think about the ramifications of this, the more severe our fall seems to have become, and I wonder more about Jay’s reference above to a “last gasp” of our constitutional republic. Turns out it really can happen here—or at least draw perilously close to the brink…