Last week, during an interview on a podcast with Dan Bongino, Trump called for Republican officials to “take over voting procedures in 15 states.” He added, “We should take over the voting… The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
One might be tempted to dismiss these as idle musings of a politician who continues to fixate on his loss in the 2020 presidential election and who continues to allege, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the election was “stolen from him.”
These musings should be raising alarm bells. We should be very worried that he is even thinking about nationalizing elections. In the context of the United States, where elections are governed primarily by state laws, “nationalizing” is code for a federal takeover of elections. It is a move straight out of the elections playbook of authoritarians who take over electoral processes whenever they feel compelled to conduct “demonstration elections” to show the world that they are the duly elected leader of their country. These demonstration elections give the appearance that elections are free, but the canvassing of ballots is controlled to ensure that the announced tallies are in their favor. Former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was known to practice this craft to show his American sponsors that he enjoyed popular support.
When Filipinos were outraged by the blatant assassination of Benigno Aquino and began to closely watch vote tallies and reporting processes, Marcos’ efforts to manipulate vote counts sparked outrage that led to his overthrow via the EDSA People Power Revolution of 1986. Marcos and his family were airlifted out of Manila by U.S. forces and given safe haven in Hawaii.
Another practitioner of this craft, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, halted the canvassing of votes and declared himself the winner when it became apparent that election outcomes would not be in his favor. Maduro did not face a popular revolt. Instead, he and his wife were reportedly seized in a Trump-ordered special military operation, and they now languish in a New York jail awaiting trial.
Trump is clearly aware of this dictator’s playbook. This call for Republicans to “nationalize” elections is a boldfaced call for Trump loyalists to ensure that he remains in power after the upcoming presidential election in 2028. He is laying the groundwork for his loyalists to control and subvert these elections since he can no longer be on the ballot. He could possibly declare these elections null and void so he can continue to remain in power by default.
American elections are governed primarily by state laws, but the Trump administration has already undertaken a series of actions to try to exert more control over American elections at the federal level. These include the seizure of ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election in Georgia, supervised, no less, by Trump’s director of national intelligence, whose office has no responsibility for elections, and the recent demand by the Justice Department that numerous states turn over their full voter rolls. Trump has also issued an executive order making changes to the electoral process, including requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote. So far, he has been rebuffed by the courts.
These assaults on a foundational pillar of American democracy, the exercise of suffrage in free and open elections, can no longer be regarded as the bumbling acts of a political buffoon whose actions provide fodder for late-night talk shows. They are deliberate and premeditated assaults on American democracy via, as Maria Ressa, the Filipino Nobel Peace Prize laureate, puts it: “death by a thousand cuts.”
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The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
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Enrique de la Cruz is Professor Emeritus of Asian American Studies at California State University, Northridge. He currently serves as a Commissioner for Human Relations with the City of Los Angeles.
