FBI agents seizing ballot boxes from polling stations where Donald Trump claims fraud has taken place. The law prohibits it, but Trump has already done so in Georgia, and in an interview he expressed regret for not using the National Guard to carry out seizures in 2020, when Biden won. Or the president declaring election tampering orchestrated from abroad, declaring a state of emergency, and attempting to strip individual states of their exclusive constitutional authority over vote counting, transferring control to his federal government under the guise of overriding national security needs.
These are just two possible post-midterm overreaches by Trump. But Flávio Bolsonaro’s refusal to accept defeat in Brazil, paired with Trump’s backing (claiming Lula “applied the Biden playbook”), has caused fears to resurface.
THE LOSER IN BRAZIL REFUSES TO CONCEDE. WHAT COULD HAPPEN IN THE US?
LULA, BOLSONARO, AND THE TRUMP PUZZLE
These fears have remained front and center for Democrats, who have deployed hundreds of lawyers across the country ready to file instant legal challenges in the event of power grabs by the presidency or the Department of Justice. The head of the Department of Justice, Todd Blanche—a former attorney for Trump—has departed from the longstanding policy of non-interference in electoral processes maintained under all previous administrations, intervening for weeks with allegations, investigations, and intimidation on multiple fronts.
The instances are numerous: ranging from a search of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s home to look for evidence supporting claims of irregularities in her immigration process, to a lawsuit against the State of California demanding a halt to mail-in ballots sent to twenty thousand people alleged not to be U.S. citizens.
Most recently, there is the dispute over Alaska: Trump himself stepped into the fray with a lawsuit demanding the annulment of the vote should Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan be defeated by Democrat Mary Peltola. The rationale: the presence on the ballot of another candidate named Dan Sullivan, an unknown retired teacher running as an independent.
The Alaska court appears inclined to dismiss the appeal as baseless. Much of the barrage of legal action originating from the White House seems less like a well-structured, sweeping offensive and more like the reflection of a leader’s frustration as the ground slips from beneath his feet—forced in these final hours to shore up support with rallies even in ultraconservative Mississippi.
To be sure, the subversiveness attempted by Trump after the 2020 vote justifies many concerns: could he not pressure secretaries of state to alter vote outcomes, as he did six years ago when he asked Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” him the eleven thousand votes needed to surpass Biden? One cannot ignore that, compared to back then, Trump is less naive. He is surrounded by more experienced individuals willing to follow him anywhere, while as president he has had time to place loyalists not only within federal agencies and administrations, but also within the judiciary and the military.
If the right loses, the scenario considered most likely remains one in which Trump returns to alleging potential fraud enabled by an electoral system he views as unreliable, but without plunging the nation into the chaos of a full constitutional crisis—leaving Congress in limbo—on the eve of a trilateral summit in China with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. He will likely claim he did everything possible to plug the leaks, but that certain candidates were simply too weak. And he will reiterate that had his Save Act passed—the legislation that would have imposed stricter voter certification procedures—there would have been greater transparency and less room for fraud.
However, that bill failed to pass even a Republican-led Congress because it was deemed, even by conservatives, to be too strict and capable of keeping many legitimate voters away from the polls. In rural, conservative America, many citizens do not hold a passport, while national identity cards do not exist. Furthermore, many married women who took their husband’s surname have never updated their birth certificates to match.
In short, the country remains in suspense, though most still bet that Trump’s provocations—which will certainly occur (such as ICE agents stationed near polling places to intimidate voters)—will not have a major impact. Or, perhaps, they may even prove counterproductive by spurring greater Democratic turnout.
The ultimate and most extreme fear remains: the declaration of a national emergency over alleged attacks by foreign powers. The most radical MAGA factions have gone so far as to urge Trump to declare martial law. In a solemn national address in July, Trump accused China of attempting to interfere in the 2020 election, adding that the same could happen again this year. Yet just a few weeks later, Trump welcomed Xi Jinping to Washington with full honors, making no mention of an issue so essential to the very survival of American democracy. Will he bring it up again now? Democratic leaders in Congress have asked CIA Director John Ratcliffe and heads of other intelligence agencies to keep an open line of communication during the vote to provide real-time updates on the validity of any external threats.
by Massimo Gaggi Corriere della Sera
Translation edited by AI Assistant Gemini.
