Election Security—or the Engineering of Distrust?
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By turning voting machines, classified intelligence, and alleged foreign interference into political theater, the Trump administration is preparing voters to distrust an election that has not yet taken place.
Donald Trump has never treated elections simply as contests to be won or lost. He treats them as tests of legitimacy whose results are valid only when they confirm his political authority. His planned national address on the “integrity” of voting machines therefore should not be dismissed as another attempt to relitigate the 2020 election. It may represent something more consequential: an effort to establish, before the 2026 midterms, a rationale for challenging any result unfavorable to Republicans.
The issue is not whether election systems should be protected. They should. Foreign governments have sought to influence American voters, spread disinformation, and deepen existing political divisions. Voting equipment, like every form of critical infrastructure, also requires testing, oversight, and investment.
But election security becomes election sabotage when the government uses the language and institutions of national security to manufacture suspicion without presenting credible evidence.
The Trump administration’s emerging campaign reportedly goes beyond a presidential speech. A White House task force has been reviewing classified intelligence and law-enforcement material concerning alleged election irregularities. Officials have considered releasing selected intelligence about foreign efforts to influence the 2020 election. At the same time, the federal government has increased pressure on state and local election authorities and expanded its scrutiny of election administration.
Each step can be defended separately as a security measure. Taken together—and placed in the context of Trump’s continued refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of his 2020 defeat—they suggest a political strategy: create an atmosphere in which a future Republican loss appears suspicious before a single ballot is counted.
That strategy depends on blurring a crucial distinction between foreign influence and the technical manipulation of votes.
The National Intelligence Council’s 2021 assessment found no indication that a foreign actor attempted to alter “any technical aspect” of the voting process, including voter registration, ballot casting, vote tabulation, or the reporting of results. Reviews by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security reached similar conclusions. Most votes are also backed by paper records that allow officials to audit electronic totals.
Technical vulnerabilities can exist without proving a stolen election. A responsible administration would explain that difference carefully. It would identify specific risks, provide evidence, work with state officials, and propose practical remedies. It would not use a prime-time presidential address to place an entire electoral system under a cloud of generalized vulnerability.
This is not transparency. It is political curation backed by the authority of the intelligence community.
Applying that model to domestic elections would cross a dangerous line. Intelligence agencies possess extraordinary powers because they are supposed to defend the country from genuine threats—not determine which election outcomes citizens should trust. When intelligence becomes ammunition in a president’s campaign against an anticipated defeat, national security institutions cease to act as neutral guardians and become participants in a struggle over political legitimacy.
The objective would not need to be proving fraud. It might be enough to keep allegations alive.
That is the central political utility of election conspiracy theories. They do not require most Americans to accept one detailed account of how an election was stolen. They require only enough uncertainty to persuade millions that no adverse result can be considered final. Suspicion becomes the product, not an unfortunate side effect.
This approach also hands foreign adversaries an extraordinary victory. The most effective attack on an election is not necessarily changing votes. It is persuading citizens that their votes no longer matter. If the White House amplifies unproven claims, exaggerates ambiguous intelligence, and portrays election officials as possible conspirators, it completes the work that foreign disinformation campaigns seek to accomplish.
Protecting elections requires vigilance against foreign interference. It also requires vigilance against a government willing to turn that threat into a weapon against democracy at home.
We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: Fairy-Tale Politics and the Need for a Plan C
Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak
“I don’t care about the midterms.”
“We’re not gonna lose an election for a hundred years.”
As the midterms approach, the conventional wisdom holds that Democrats are virtually guaranteed victory. The narrative assumes that voters, disillusioned with Trump’s failed “concept of a plan” economic policies and vanity projects and frustrated by the GOP’s failure to deliver the financial security they promised and restore the nation’s moral rectitude, will sweep Democrats into power. Once there, the thinking goes, Democrats will reverse the damage – and global embarrassment – inflicted by Trump and his enablers. They will impeach him a third time – and, we are led to believe, convict him (though this is unlikely given the necessary 67-vote Senate majority) – along with other members of his griftocracy. Construction on the White House ballroom and other vanity projects will cease, and their structures will be torn down. The full Epstein files will be released, paving the way for the criminal prosecution of the culprits and their ouster from government, including those responsible for the coverup. Democratic-led oversight committees will launch investigations into corruption. Taken together, should these actions prove successful, they will presumably clear the way for victories in 2028. The rule of law will be restored, the Wicked Witch of the West melted, and her flying monkeys defanged. We will live happily ever after.
But wait. Let’s remove the rose-colored shades. This scenario assumes that midterm elections will actually be held. It assumes that the electorate, exhausted by gratuitous economic woes and capricious wars, anxious about the gaping holes torn in the social safety net, and disgusted and incensed by pandemic levels of corruption, will vote the scoundrels out. It assumes voters will have finally realized that Republican policies do not serve their interests, but rather those of the party and its wealthy corporate mega-donors.
For their part, Republican officials are fully aware of the jeopardy they are in. They have seen the polls, the precipitous tanking of Trump’s approval numbers, the public jeering, and the vocal dissatisfaction expressed at Republican town halls, if and when they are held. Some have backed away from certain Trump policies. Former MAGA pundits and media influencers have voiced their disappointment and disillusionment with Trump, MAGA, and the GOP. Yet, for every ballyhooed MAGA “revolt,” there is a weak-kneed, opportunistic retreat. Despite this “civil war,” the Republican leadership has remained remarkably calm, their loyalty to Trump and his Project 2025-adjacent agenda barely wavering, at least in public, suggesting they do not fear a Hokusai-level blue wave.
The question is why? The Occam’s Razor answer is that they are betting the farm that there will be no midterms or that, if held, they will be finessed to favor them.
While it is unlikely Trump’s SAVE America Act will see the light of day (or so one hopes), it is already clear that Republican legislators intend to ensure, through gerrymandering, intimidation, and other voter suppression tactics, that there are no free and fair midterms – if any at all – a prelude to their Fuehrer’s gleeful prediction of a 100-year Reich during which Americans will “never have to vote again.” Indeed, should they be held, their results will be questioned if Democrats win. Think 2020, but this time on a state-by-state level.
What happens then? What is the Democrats’ Plan B?
Let’s be optimistic and assume that despite Republicans’ machinations, the midterms are held and Democrats win both the Senate and the House (Recent forecasts suggest Democrats may win only the House, in which case we can expect the usual legislative gridlock.) If so, what guarantees do we have that they will follow through with their course correctives? Given the party’s history, why should we assume that they mean what they say, or that they will deliver on their promises to restore the rule of law, legislate for social justice, end yet another forever war, and reverse the nation’s status from global laughingstock back to a respected, if flawed, inspirational republic?
The Democratic leadership, when it is not writing “very strong letters” and gesturing in manual semaphore, pragmatically assumes that to regain political power it must appeal to Independents and disaffected Republicans rather than embrace its own center-left and progressive wings, fearing that it will lose its James Carvilles, Rahm Emanuels, and other establishment Democrats if it does. This despite the fact that American voters generally favor progressive economic policy positions over those of the Democratic establishment.
This is ironic given that Carville himself famously declared, “It’s the economy, stupid.” One would think his ilk would realize that this progressive gift is not a Trojan horse. But this assumes the Democrats will focus their energies on actually repairing the long-term economic damage wreaked by the Trumpists, rather than merely campaigning on it, and that, if not eggs, the rising prices of gas, electricity, and other essentials will have enough legs to carry them to victory. Given the impact of Trump’s eat-the-poor policies, pressing these issues would undoubtedly serve their interests. But will they also seek to repair the damage unrestrained Republican rule has inflicted on democracy itself? Will they commit to a national self-esteem based not on the capricious projection of military might but on adherence to the higher ideals of accountability, equity, minority rights, and diversity – and to the structural checks and balances intrinsic to the success of multicultural democratic governance?
In short, what is to prevent the Democratic establishment from lazily falling back on the bipartisan, forgive-and-forget habits of the past?: A past in which Ford pardoned Nixon, and George H.W. Bush pardoned many of those involved in the Iran-Contra affair. And Obama, backed by a short-lived Democratic majority during his first term, refused to pursue the yellowcake-waving architects of the Iraq War, waterboarding, and illegal domestic surveillance, essentially pledging to “move the country forward” rather than linger on the past. Even Trump, despite his relentless critiques of Obama, has not challenged his predecessor’s illegal drone strikes; he has only escalated them. Consequently, while we can expect the Democrats to pull up their sleeves and reckon with the affordability crisis, is it realistic to expect they will do anything to hold Trump – and his enablers – accountable for his election interference plots, his violations of the Emoluments Clause, and his laundry list of other high crimes and misdemeanors? Or will the dirty work of pursuing justice and accountability simply be mistaken for dirty politics, rather than necessary housecleaning?
Trump has set a finger-trap of distrust within our political systems. The problem is not merely that a lie told often enough – and Trump has told a record number of them – becomes the truth, but that it redefines our relationship with reality. Repeated lies about voter fraud and election theft have generated suspicion and distrust of the political system as a whole. Trump and his allies rage about stolen elections without a scintilla of evidence, even as evidence mounts that they are actually plotting to subvert upcoming ones. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? Does the truth exist? The details matter, but they are obscured by a manufactured uncertainty that breeds indifference, disgust, and, yes, cynicism, the kind of cynicism that may prevent people from casting their vote, which, of course, is the ultimate aim of the trap.
The Republicans cast their witch hunts against their political enemies as legitimate activities meant to ensure accountability; yet, if and when Democrats announce their intent to launch their own hearings against Republican misconduct, the GOP will denounce it as vindictive, weaponized “lawfare,” despite the fact that Democratic-led investigations have generally relied on evidentiary legal standards, unlike their opponents.
The trap is not just psychological. What of all the money wasted on Trump’s ill-conceived and poorly executed vanity projects? Once back in power, will Democrats, acting on their cathartic rhetoric, actually raze them and risk being accused of suffering from the same petty, vendetta-driven politics of those they defeated, that, if pursued, threatens to further national polarization?
How many more taxpayer dollars will be wasted to tear down a $600 million (and counting) ballroom-bunker and a $100 million Independence Arch? This is, of course, in addition to funds required to repair the damage to the Reflecting Pool. (Does anyone seriously think that a second try, by the same no-bid contractors, no less, will restore it?)
Not to mention the German-American Friendship Garden fountain and other historical properties that are all in need of post-“repair” repairs, including removing all of the superglued, gilded Home Depot appliqués and Shelley Script signage that decorate the White House. How can Democrats justify such spending when it would be better spent on restoring funding to social and international aid programs that actually benefit the people?
What can be done to ensure that they rise to the task, assuming, of course, there is any agreement on what that task should be? And how do we ensure that their corporate mega-donors do not intervene to sway them from it?
Again, Republicans have already laid the groundwork to delegitimize whatever course corrections Democrats might be planning, preemptively characterizing them as “weaponized lawfare,” essentially borrowing a page from Trump’s playbook to project their own tactics onto their political opponents, whose more progressive wing they now dub “communists” to scare the public back into complacency and docile acceptance of Republican rule. The situation is not helped by weak-kneed Democratic centrists who have piggybacked on the charge, not because they fear Republican rule, but because they fear their own political obsolescence. They fear that the Republican war machine will use the Democratic Socialists as a means to scare voters away from more moderate Democrats, a fear that is justified only so long as these centrists refuse to articulate and act on positions in ways that reach the public whose judgment they fear.
Ironically, fearing that pursuing justice will further divide the country or the party itself, and acting to signal their moral superiority, Democrats will likely choose to move on instead. Wash, rinse, repeat. Like Cronus, the party eats its children for fear of losing its throne. Just ask Al Franken, Eric Swalwell, and Graham Platner, whose stalled or disrupted political careers demonstrate how swiftly Democrats clean house.
In contrast, the Republican establishment routinely slow-walks accountability, dragging its feet for months through ethics probes and shielding figures like Matt Gaetz, Chuck Edwards, Cory Mills, and Max Miller from swift discipline, preferring to ignore or, worse still, promote its own party’s filth. Indeed, despite sexual assault allegations and a subsequent financial settlement, Pete Hegseth was confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Similarly, Department of Justice and House Ethics Committee investigations into Gaetz’s sexual misconduct and other illicit activities failed to prevent his nomination for Attorney General. The exception to this rule is Tony Gonzales, currently the party’s sole high-profile offender of color, whose resignation under pressure exposes a glaring racial double standard. This only goes to prove that while both parties have evil stepmothers, only one rushes to do anything about them. Call it the Paxton paradigm.
So where is our Plan C if they do fail to follow through? Fed up with the usual by-the-numbers politics, will we launch general strikes, tax boycotts, and other prolonged and sustained acts of civil disobedience? A massive subscriber boycott of ABC’s corporate overlords returned Jimmy Kimmel to the air, but Stephen Colbert was not so fortunate. What coordinated actions will bring back our democracy when our elected representatives fail to protect it? Or will we simply be satisfied that Trump and his ilk have been defeated and move on? What other response is there to disillusioning, grim fairy tales? Or is the thought of active, ongoing resistance, Sisyphean though it may be, merely adding another fairy tale?
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