Trump's Latest Power Grab Targets Your Right to Vote by Mail

Another Day, Another Attack on Democracy

While Donald Trump spent this morning threatening to wipe out "a whole civilization" in Iran, he's been busy dismantling democracy at home too. Last week, the president signed an executive order that attempts to give the federal government control over who gets to vote by mail -- a brazen power grab that has no basis in law and tramples on states' constitutional authority to run their own elections.

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of "approved" absentee voters and commands the U.S. Postal Service not to mail requested ballots to anyone else. Trump, who himself voted by mail in Florida days before signing this order, claimed at the ceremony that "the cheating on mail-in voting is legendary" and that his order would "help a lot with elections."

It won't. What it will do is trigger a wave of lawsuits that will almost certainly kill the order in court. The legal strategy is so transparently unconstitutional that even Trump-friendly judges will have trouble defending it.

The Point Isn't Winning in Court

But here's the thing: Trump doesn't need to win in court to accomplish his real goals. Democracy advocates who track the president's election interference efforts say the order is part of a larger pattern -- one designed to confuse voters, intimidate election officials, and lay the groundwork for contesting results Trump doesn't like.

"He can't lose with this," Alexandra Chandler of Protect Democracy told The Bulwark. "Because basically, if there is the faintest vanishing chance the courts didn't stop him, then he gets a win there. If he doesn't, he gets a win in a narrative sense, and it just is the pretext for the next round, for the next action and the next, and then the eventual denial of the results."

This is the playbook. Trump's base still believes Democrats stole the 2020 election. Every time a court blocks one of his orders, he gets to scream about "rogue judges" and use that as justification for his next assault on democratic norms. When the order inevitably fails, he'll claim the system is rigged against him and his supporters will believe it.

A Pattern of Intimidation

The mail voting order doesn't exist in a vacuum. Earlier this year, Trump failed to convince Congress to pass his SAVE America Act, which would have required voters nationwide to show proof of U.S. citizenship to register or vote by mail. When the legislative route failed, he turned to executive overreach.

And he's been testing the limits of what he can get away with. In January, the FBI raided the elections office in Fulton County, Georgia -- a clear message to election officials everywhere about what happens when you don't play ball with Trump's demands. The raid was part of an ongoing campaign to intimidate anyone involved in election administration who might have the courage to stand up to him.

The Real Danger

Trump is hemorrhaging political support. His approval ratings are tanking as Americans watch him threaten war crimes in Iran and dismantle government agencies at home. But here's what should terrify everyone: Trump has a much stronger grip on the machinery of American democracy than he did in 2020.

He's installing loyalists throughout the federal government. He's purging military leadership. And he's systematically attacking the infrastructure that makes free and fair elections possible. If he succeeds in stealing the next election, it won't matter that most Americans oppose him.

There's a dangerous complacency taking hold -- the same complacency that existed in 2020, but with even less justification now. Too many people seem confident that Trump will simply choose not to squeeze the neck of American democracy when the time comes. They're wrong.

What Comes Next

The lawsuits against Trump's mail voting order are already piling up. They'll almost certainly succeed. But that won't stop Trump from issuing another order, making another threat, launching another investigation into election officials who won't bend the knee.

Every absurd controversy -- the war threats, the agency purges, the daily chaos -- serves a purpose. It distracts us from the methodical work of dismantling democratic safeguards. While we're watching Trump threaten genocide in Iran, he's quietly building the infrastructure to steal elections at home.

The question isn't whether Trump will try to subvert the next election. He's already doing it. The question is whether anyone will stop him before it's too late.