For The Atlantic’s December cover package, “The Coming Election Mayhem,” staff writer David A. Graham and former federal judge J. Michael Luttig warn of President Donald Trump’s plans to throw the 2026 midterms into chaos and to hold on to the extreme power he has already amassed since returning to the presidency. In two distinct pieces, Graham details in exacting terms the steps the Trump administration has already taken––and the steps it could take––to undermine the coming midterm election, while Luttig makes the argument that Trump clearly intends to hold on to power––even if it means seizing a third term.
To better understand the threat to democracy––and how it might be stopped––Graham spoke with experts on election administration, constitutional law, and law enforcement. Graham writes: “Many of them are people I have known to be cautious, sober, and not prone to hyperbole. Yet they used words like nightmare and warned that Americans need to be ready for ‘really wild stuff.’ They described a system under attack and reaching a breaking point. They enumerated a long list of concerns about next year’s midterms, but they largely declined to make predictions about the 2028 presidential election. The speed of Trump’s assault on the Constitution has made forecasting difficult, but the 2026 contests—both the way they work, and the results—will help determine whether democracy as we know it will survive until then. ‘If you are not frightened,’ Hannah Fried, the executive director of the voter-access group All Voting Is Local, told me, ‘you are not paying attention.’”
Graham writes that since 2016, Trump has been trying to teach the American people to distrust elections, and many of his actions now are designed to create a pretense for claiming fraud later, including suggesting that millions of unauthorized immigrants are voting, although this is not true. Trump has consistently tried to spread distrust of voting by mail, and he and his allies have insisted for nearly a decade—without ever providing proof—that many voting machines are not secure. In past elections, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, assisted local officials. The administration has cut about a third of CISA’s workforce and slashed millions of dollars of assistance to local officials, potentially exposing election systems to interference by foreign or domestic hackers. Federal law specifically bans the presence of “any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States”––but with the National Guard deployed to U.S. cities, some experts believe that military intervention is now not only possible but likely.
Graham writes that stopping any attempt to subvert the midterms will require courage and integrity from the courts, political leaders of both parties, and the local officials running elections, but “most of all, it will depend on individual Americans to stand up for their rights and demand that their votes are counted.”
“Defending the system in 2026 won’t guarantee clean elections in 2028, but failing to do so would be catastrophic,” he writes. “Trump will exploit any weaknesses he can find; any damage to the system will encourage worse rigging in two years, and maybe even a quest for a third term. And if the president has two more years to act without any checks, there may not be much democracy left to save in 2028.”
In a companion piece, “President for Life,” Luttig writes that since Trump’s second victory, he has told the American people that he is prepared to do what it takes to remain in power, the Constitution be damned. As recently as March, Trump refused to rule out a third term, saying that he was “not joking” about the prospect and claiming that “there are methods which you could do it”; in September, Trump posted photographs on Truth Social in which Trump 2028 hats rested prominently on his Oval Office desk; and this month, when discussing the possibility of a third term, Trump said, “I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever.” Luttig writes: “We Americans are by nature good people who believe in the inherent goodness of others, especially those we elect to represent us in the highest office in the land. But we ignore such statements and other expressions of Trump’s intent at our peril. The 47th president is a vain man, and nothing would flatter his vanity more than seizing another term. Doing so would signify the ultimate triumph over his political enemies.” Luttig writes that in his public-service career in the Ford, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush administrations, and with the Department of Justice: “I have never once in more than four decades believed that any president—Democrat or Republican—would intentionally violate the Constitution or a law of the United States. But Trump is different from all prior presidents in his utter contempt for the Constitution and America’s democracy.”
The Atlantic’s December cover stories build upon past covers that have provided advance warnings around the looming threats to democracy, including The Atlantic’s special issue from December 2023, “If Trump Wins”; Barton Gellman’s “The Election That Could Break America” in November 2020; and David Frum’s “How To Build an Autocracy” from March 2017, among others.
David Graham’s “The Coming Election Mayhem” and J. Michael Luttig’s “President for Life” were published today at TheAtlantic.com. Please reach out with any questions or requests.
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