How Trump Can Use Chaos to Cheat in the Midterms

Donald Trump holds a signed executive order in March, purporting to restrict mail-in voting. Alex Brandon/AP

In his crusade to undermine American democracy, Donald Trump doesn’t have to win to win. He only needs to create a mess.

Look at this week’s news. There were several court actions regarding Trump’s outrageous attempt to restrict mail-in voting for the midterms. The back-and-forth was confusing, as the Supreme Court undid a lower court's decision that had blocked key components of Trump’s plan. The US Postal Service then announced it would proceed with Trump’s scheme, but a federal judge subsequently issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the USPS from moving ahead. The legal fight is continuing, with mail-in voting due to begin within several weeks in some states.

So…chaos. Which is what Trump desires. Surely, he wants to succeed in severely limiting mail-in balloting—an obsession of his that seems patently unconstitutional, given that the founders handed the authority to run and oversee national elections only to the states and Congress. But he also triumphs if his shenanigans foster uncertainty.

Many voters do not follow the ins and outs of electoral law. As with most issues, they hear and see snatches of news and miss key developments and important details. It can be tough to be fully informed on this front. But if voters receive the impression that mail-in ballots might not count, might not be permitted, or might expose a voter to extra scrutiny, some voters might not bother to vote or might be intimidated from voting.

It will be a disaster for democracy should Trump manage to win this legal battle and limit mail-in voting. Eight states run elections primarily by mail: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. So does Washington, DC. And several other states rely heavily on mail-in ballots. But even if the courts ultimately reject his assault on postal voting, the confusion he’s sowing could, to a degree, subvert the election.

Trump’s attack on mail-in ballots is only one front in his war on voting. He already has succeeded in pushing Republicans to gerrymander congressional districts ahead of schedule to tilt the playing field this year toward the GOP. The Trump administration also just announced it will deploy 1,000 election monitors to voting sites in November.

Past administrations have sent out monitors without causing disruptions. But given Trump’s adversarial stance toward state election authorities and his ceaseless pushing of bogus election conspiracy theories, there’s reason to worry that mischief and voter intimidation could be prompted by his supposed monitors.

One cause for concern: The Justice Department’s civil rights division has apparently hired for its election monitoring project a lawyer named David Michael Levin, who in 2016 was charged in Florida with three felonies for allegedly hacking into government election sites. According to Democracy Docket, the charges were reduced to two misdemeanors, and he pleaded guilty and served 20 days in jail. Moreover, Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the civil rights division, which is responsible for election monitoring, is a 2020 election denier who pushed Trump’s false claims about that contest. Having her head an election monitoring mission would be like placing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the nation’s vaccine policies. Oh…wait.

There also has been speculation among Trump detractors that he might resort to stationing troops, National Guard forces, or ICE agents at polling places to scare off voters. If anything like this happens, Trump and the GOP will argue that citizens entitled to vote have no reason to fear the presence of ICE agents. But since ICE agents have rounded up American citizens—and often acted violently—their appearance at these sites would likely keep some voters away. Who wants to risk being erroneously apprehended or getting caught up in a violent ICE action—just for exercising their constitutional right to vote?

Such speculation is far from idle. Bobby Charles, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Maine, recently said he would ask White House border czar Tom Homan to send ICE agents to the state’s polling stations. (In July, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national, was shot and killed by ICE agents in Biddeford, Maine. He was mistakenly targeted by ICE agents who were looking for his roommate.) Trump and his minions don’t have to dispatch ICE on Election Day to frighten away voters; a public discussion of this prospect could be enough to keep some voters at home.

Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has said that he would not deploy ICE agents to intimidate voters, but there’s no reason to accept his promise. After all, Trump and his entire administration have been promoting the baseless lie that election fraud is rampant and noncitizen voting is a significant problem. In a speech in July, Trump declared that DHS had identified 250,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls of four states. But since then, DHS has not been able to produce proof of this, and it has even acknowledged that the number was inflated.

It’s so damn obvious but still deserves saying: Nothing this administration states about voting should be taken at face value. Pushing his Big Lie about the 2020 election, Trump nearly annihilated the nation’s constitutional order. He mounted a disinformation campaign to discredit legitimate voting results and incited violence to stay in power. After that, screwing around with the midterms is peanuts for him. No one should be surprised that he will use whatever power he now has to rig the coming elections in his favor. All media coverage of his assault on mail-in voting and his other attempts to reduce voting participation should be presented within the context that Trump is a clear and present threat to democracy.

The US electoral system is a crazy quilt of state and local election authorities. It won’t be easy for Trump to meddle in hundreds of contests across the country—especially in Democratic-led states. Mail-in ballots may be his best shot. But with only 19 House seats deemed toss-ups at this point, Trump and his crew will only have to interfere in a handful of races to help his Republican cultists remain in charge of Congress.

These coming elections are not only significant because control of the legislative branch is at stake at a time of crisis. They will demonstrate whether the United States can have free and fair elections or whether Trump and the GOP will prevail in their ongoing endeavor to impose minority rule on America.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

By now, most of you know my new book, How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America, is being published September 15. As I have (desperately) noted a few times, these days, pre-orders are crucial for the success of a book. (I explain that fully here.) And Politics and Prose, a great indie bookstore in Washington, DC, has arranged a special offer for all pre-orders of How Russia Won: a signed (by me) edition. If you’re inclined to purchase the book, now would be a good time to do so. Click here for that offer, or pre-order it wherever you get your books.

Many thanks to Our Land readers who have already done so. I expect this book will receive lots of pushback from MAGA, right-wing media, and perhaps even the MSM, and I appreciate all the support coming from Our Land subscribers. Here’s a great blurb for the book from Benjamin Wittes, the editor of Lawfare:

Has to be Dolly Parton. It was wonderful to see how much admiration and love was directed toward the iconic singer-songwriter when her death was announced. Not only did she bring joy to so many through her songs and performances; she was an effective philanthropist and advocate. Her Imagination Library has provided more than 330 million free books to children. In the early days of the Covid pandemic, she donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for vaccine research that helped develop testing that proved the Moderna vaccine could be effective. She starred in 9 to 5, the feminist-minded comedy, and wrote its hit theme song. She was a longtime champion of gay rights.

Yet voices on the right and in the media blathered on about how she eschewed politics and steered clear of ideological fights. Fox News posted a tweet that proclaimed, “Dolly Parton spent decades refusing to pick political sides…The country music icon, who died Tuesday at 80, built her legacy on a principle most entertainers abandoned long ago: loving her audience more than any political cause.”

CNN’s Zachary Wolf wrote, “At a time when no American celebrity seems immune from the country’s many divisions, Dolly Parton was a crossover icon who stayed neutral in the culture wars while still speaking her mind.”

She might have been nonpartisan, but she wasn’t neutral. In 2016, she explained her support for LGBTQ rights:

I do not believe we should criticize and judge other people. If you’re the fine Christian you think you are, why are you judging people? I just think we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight. You should be allowed to be how you are and who you are.

In 2020, she backed the Black Lives Matter movement: “Of course, Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No.”

Pro-vaccine, pro-LGBTQ, pro-Black Lives Matter, pro-feminism—that doesn’t sound like she was neutral. Parton defiantly evolved from a country music artist to a multi-genre performer, and she engaged in cultural politics in her own fashion, keeping silent on some matters and avoiding partisan battles yet speaking her mind on key issues. When she did, she was a voice for tolerance, diversity, and science. We know what side she was on.

In the past few days, there has been so much wonderful Parton content on social media. Here are two great covers she performed: Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” (yes, she pulled it off), and Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” (with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt):

In Trump’s first interview after the death of Dolly Parton, he said this about the star: “She really liked me.”

Not surprising for a malignant narcissist, but disgusting all the same.

When Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was asked if he had any insights about the trade conflict between the United States and Canada, he ranted about our neighbor to the north:

It's a country that doesn't have a military. It’s a country that has a single-payer system that’s failing. They have record-high euthanasia rates. And so to think that they're gonna go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the US, I think it's foolish on their part.

Canada does indeed have a military with 68,000 troops and 32,000 reservists. And its health care system has its challenges, but it is not failing. Get this, Duffy: Life expectancy in Canada is about 83 years, and it’s 76 in the United States, and Canada’s health care expenses are lower.

Islamophobia is no longer merely acceptable within GOP and MAGA ranks; it is practically obligatory. Look at this tweet from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)

This is also a good reminder that Charlie Kirk, now the patron saint of MAGA, was a hater.

In the ongoing lawsuit over Trump’s attempt to slap his name on the Kennedy Center, the Justice Department this week submitted a filing that claimed the center is in a state of disrepair and that without Trump’s intervention it “will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down.” In other words, if Trump doesn’t win this lawsuit, he will burn the place down.

In a countermotion, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, called out this threat: “In plain English, Defendants have not-so-subtly said: ‘What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it.’ This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop.”

Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Kennedy Center could only be renovated if Trump is the “construction manager.” Yes, he said that.

But doesn’t Trump already have a job? Moreover, look at how well Trump has managed the renovation of the Reflecting Pool.

On Meet the Press, host Kristen Welker asked Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) about the inflationary impact of Trump’s new tariffs on Canadian products. He immediately replied that the “original sin of cost in America…goes to Joe Biden.” Welker pointed out that Trump is now in the second year of his second presidency. But Scott persisted and claimed, “President Trump has brought inflation from a sky-high of 21 percent over the Biden years down to under 5 percent.”

Twenty-one percent? The only times that inflation has topped 20 percent were in 1920 (23.7 percent) and March 1947 (20.1 percent). Scott was echoing disinformation that Trump recently posted online comparing cumulative inflation rates under different presidents.

When Welker accurately countered that inflation was at 3 percent when Biden left office and is now 3.4 percent, Scott insisted that Trump has built a “resilient and strong economy with our wages going up.” Let’s ask the Bureau of Labor Statistics about this. It says: “Real average hourly earnings for all employees decreased 0.1 percent from June to July.” 

This was just another ridiculous Sunday morning performance from a have-no-self-respect member of Congress. But it so epitomized the Baghdad Bob-like spinning of Trump’s GOP loyalists that the judges were all set to hand Scott the prize.  

Then they saw this:

The numbskulls at the Department of Education posted a video that compared Trump to Hitler—positively. The aim was to praise Dear Leader in the usual cultish fashion, and the video opens with a scene from Darkest Hour in which Winston Churchill exclaims, “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!” The “tiger” is apparently Trump, for the video then shifts to what are supposed to be heroic-looking shots of the president.  

But Churchill was shouting about Hitler. These fools at the Department of Education were applying a reference to the Nazis’ supreme leader to their own supreme leader. After social media users pointed this out, the dimwits deleted the post—but not in time to prevent them from winning this week’s award. 

There were several angry letters from readers—who I doubt are regulars—who vented about the recent issue on Tucker Carlson making common cause with Russia’s disinformation operations. Michael Shamamian wrote:

If Mother Jones were alive today, I believe your anti-Russian bigotry would be condemned by her. Stop your advocacy for more war. Thanks to wanton propagandists like you, an entire generation of Ukrainian men has been liquidated! When will your bloodlust be satiated? Shame on you!

I believe a fellow named Vladimir Putin is more responsible for the deaths of Ukrainians than any critic of Russia’s covert actions against the United States or its military assault on its neighbor.

Elizabeth Wikfors emailed:

I wonder if you took your Ukraine/Russia studies back to 2014, or even a tad bit further, you might be inclined to temper your Russophobia. If you choose to, please take a closer look at the negotiations with NATO, in particular the sudden policy switches imposed by Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel. It sets a generous table with plenty of food for thought.

The story of the interactions between the West and Moscow post-Soviet Union is one of many complexities and perhaps missed opportunities. There is an argument that NATO was too aggressive in taking advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Putin is responsible for his clandestine assaults on Western democracies, his totalitarian repression at home (which includes murdering and imprisoning his foes and critics), and his horrific and brutal invasion of Ukraine. It is not Russophobic to point this out. I’ve been to Russia twice and much enjoyed my visits. My hope is that the Russian people can soon be free of Putin’s tyranny.

Neola Mace and a few other readers noted I made a mistake in the issue on Natalie Harp and Trump:

I have been watching you for years (probably first on Hardball?) and also reading your genius words. Thank you. One tiny nit with the above-referenced newsletter. According to many sources, Hegseth did not fly on the decoy plane. He got off it and joined Trump, Natalie, and Walt Nauta after they changed planes, but he skipped the indignity of the catering cart.

My apologies to the defense secretary for insinuating that he was not regarded by Trump as indispensable as Harp. But Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller remain in that category.

Per Broman wrote an interesting Substack article about my experiment of asking AI to “write” a novel. He responded to online criticism from social media users who were pissed off at the idea of deploying AI for such a task. Here’s an excerpt:

The [AI-generated] book is about a novel within the novel—AI-assisted, with Claude as “a creative partner”—that is heavily criticized; the criticism generates a second confessional novel responding to the upheaval; and that, in turn, drew nearly identical criticism on Bluesky in the real world.

I’m actually kind of shocked by the comments. Corn wanted reactions to his article. Not unfounded critique of AI. Multiple comments are variations of “If a person can’t be bothered to write the book, why should I be bothered to read it?” I can answer that: reading and writing are not the same thing. You can still find enjoyment, and even learn something, by reading a Claude-generated book.

If you’re still interested in this subject, it’s worth reading Per’s whole take.

“Summer’s almost over, Moxie.”
“No more beach days?”
“Only a few more.”
“Why can’t every day be a beach day?”
“Now that is the question.”