Trump's attack on Iran and the plot against your vote - Democracy Docket
By: Marc Elias (Democracy Docket)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Donald Trump is planning to use his attack on Iran to justify a power grab over voting in the 2026 midterms. The fact that the attack violates the Constitution won't stop him from trying. It is our job to expose this plot and ensure that it does not succeed.
At 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, Donald Trump posted a video on his social media platform announcing that he had ordered the bombing of Iran.
Two hours later, he wrote: "Iran tried to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop Trump and now faces renewed war with the United States." In that post, he also shared an article from a right-wing news outlet with that claim as its title.
These two posts — back-to-back, in the early hours of Saturday morning as U.S. forces were launching a military campaign — are just the latest instance of Trump citing foreign interference as the motivation or justification for unilateral executive action.
Trump is setting the stage to claim extraordinary powers to take over the 2026 elections — from banning mail-in voting to imposing new obstacles to voter registration. All of this will be justified on the grounds of national security, an area where presidents enjoy their broadest powers and typically receive the greatest deference from the courts.
Iran is not the first foreign country Trump and his cronies have falsely accused of rigging the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump cronies claimed that Venezuelan former President Hugo Chavez was involved in tampering with voting equipment — notwithstanding the fact that Chavez died in 2013.
Election deniers also promoted a bizarre theory involving Italy, military satellites and foreign computer systems. Additional conspiracy theories implicated Cuba and Germany, among other countries.
Iran is not the first foreign country Trump and his cronies have falsely accused of rigging the outcome of the 2020 election.
If it seems like Trump and his allies have been hopscotching around the globe to explain his electoral defeat in 2020, they have. But lying about the 2020 election is only part of the reason they continue to lean on these conspiracy theories. They have their sights on an even bigger target.
In recent weeks, the motivation behind these lies has been to give Trump the power to interfere with voting in 2026. The Washington Post recently reported that Trump is considering issuing an executive order that would "empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference."
While the president and his supporters have mostly focused on China as the pretext for seizing control of voting, Trump's social media post suggests that Iran may also serve as a useful villain to justify his extraordinary assertion of presidential power.
According to an April 2025 draft executive order circulated by right-wing election deniers, the president's authority to act would rest on several statutes: the National Emergencies Act, the Federal Information Security Modernization Act and the Defense Production Act.
However, none of these laws — nor any others — can override the text of the U.S. Constitution, which empowers the states to set the time, place and manner of federal elections. And while Congress can alter state election laws, presidents cannot.
As a federal court in Washington, D.C., recently held in striking down Trump's last executive order on voting: "Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures."
Those around Trump know that their only chance to overcome the Constitution's plain text is to identify a different constitutional provision that grants him this authority. For that, they appear to have settled on the president's role as commander in chief and protector of national security.
They know that courts are traditionally deferential to presidents on foreign affairs and national security — and that they grant presidents wide latitude to protect the country from foreign attack.
Trump is clearly setting the stage to claim that he must be permitted to rewrite the rules in order to protect our elections from foreign interference. I am confident these efforts will fail.
First, neither of the military actions against Iran nor Venezuela has received congressional approval, and we are not at war with China. While a president's power may be at its greatest as commander in chief, it is Congress alone that declares war.
As for the broader national security interest, that may justify certain presidential actions, but it does not override the plain language of the Constitution, which excludes the president from any role in setting the rules of elections.
Trump's desire to control voting in 2026 is born of the same impulse that drives him to lie about the 2020 results.
Finally, the steps the president wants to take — banning mail-in voting and most voting equipment, requiring photo ID to vote, and requiring proof of citizenship to register — are transparently self-serving and political. In an unguarded moment a few weeks ago, Trump said that Republicans "should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting."
Trump's desire to control voting in 2026 is born of the same impulse that drives him to lie about the 2020 results. His ego cannot withstand his deep unpopularity. His base needs an explanation for why he loses. And he fears the legal and political consequences of losing power.
Iran, Venezuela, China, Italy, Cuba and Germany are not the reason Trump lost in 2020 — he is. These countries do not justify an authoritarian takeover in 2026. No foreign threat or domestic circumstance grants him that power.
Those of us who care about democracy must sound the alarm about the threat Trump poses to free and fair elections. Then we must fight him in the public arena and in the courtroom to prevent him from seizing power he does not have. That is what I will be doing for the next nine months. I hope you will join me.
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Trump cannot be trusted about anything.
Even the magas who know and don't care that Trump always lies are starting to turn against him because of Epstein and his regime change foreign wars.
The midterms are looming large.
trump knows exactly how ignorant and gullible his supporters are ...
Does he ever. I have a trumpist friend who said it is "absurd and ridiculous to think Trump doesn't have a meticulous, well-thought out plan" for his Iran attack. Just insane.
he's so easily manipulated by those much like him ...
I have a trumpist friend who
The husband of one of my wife’s best friends is a hardcore republican. We used to visit regularly but now it’s just the ladies that visit. I want nothing to do with him now. I can handle being republican, but if that includes support for Trump they can go pound sand. It’s unfortunate that the venn diagram between republicans and Trump supporters is basically a circle.
I had the same venn thoughts yesterday. it basically looks like a 3D picture would before you put on the glasses.
I am sure that somebody planned it out, but it wasn't him. I think the Israelis probably concocted the plan with input from the US.
What was that one I heard to describe the Defense Secretary? Oh, yeah-- Kegsbreath, he probably didn't have anything to do with the planning either.
He is one of a group of friends I have known since the 7th grade, which was 62 years ago. He was even my dorm roommate at college for one year. We all mostly see each other only on an almost weekly Zoom session. They all like to do a group text, too, but I generally avoid that. My other friends put him down bad right to his face. Sometimes I do, too.
I have a three trumpist in-laws. Two of them recently told me they are getting disappointed in Trump and that was before this recent fiasco. The other one probably still likes him, but he is 88 so I only talk politics with him when he brings it up.
my trumpster relatives know better than to mention him to me, by coincidence, they're gullible thumpers too ...
Almost all of my family are pretty liberal. Over time a few have been activists for one progressive cause or another.
Almost all of my family are pretty liberal. Over time a few have been activists for one progressive cause or another.
One cousin in Charlotte is very involved with a group of womens' rights activists. They go down to a local Abortion clinic (where anti-abortion protestors are kept on one side of the street by police, and the group she's in stays on the other side).
Some of the women coming for abortions are very scared, so two women from the rights group walk each one from their car to the clinic door.
(Their group also activily joins any progressive protests in that city and surrounding areas)
liberals founded this country, while non-liberals wore red coats, with holes put in those coats eventually ...
No doubt someone planned it out. The federalist society, framers of the plan for Project 2025.
Mine, too. I don't know of any so-called conservatives or Republicans in my family. My wife's family has the Trump supporters, but just the three that I am aware of. I can't imagine anyone in my family liking Trump at all, and my wife certainly doesn't. She can't understand why anyone would.
There are gradually becoming more and more Republiicans (and "Independents") like that.
Its too early to predict the outcome of the midterms but I have a feeling that the Dems will end up controlling one (or possibly both) houses of Congress.
Actually there's another "branch" of my family who were Nazis. But I never considered them to be real family. They are only related by marriage.
Long ago my aunt married a German guy, a citizen of Nazi Germany at the time. He was very progressive-- he worked for the Dutch underground opposding Facism! But he had family who were Nazis-- one of his brothers was an officer in Hitler's army.
(So I suppose I could say I had Nazis in my family-- family by marriage!)
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Enemies both foreign and domestic.
So the guy that constantly complains that elections are rigged, wants to rig the election....wow, shocking /s
Yeah, can you imagine? Hard to believe.
And it looks like the war loving idiots are most happy when they are causing needless death to not only those they blindly see as enemies, but, our men and women in uniform as well.
To me it seems that Trump jumped into Israel's war game to create a distraction for the election here at home. And, playing the vasalating game "will I or won't I" make good on the large amounts of money from his cancelled tariffs. Since there has been no concrete date of such event, it is a good chance it will never happen.
What? Trump give away money to common people?
JMOO
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⇑ he will never fill our late friend's shoes here, but is fully qualified to temporarily be stuck to the bottom of one.
I think he was just running a scam on the people who bet on such things as "When will Trump Bomb Iran"
Absolutely true, Dev.
Anything and everything Trump says is nothing but a lie/scam. I would not bet money on his ever being truthful about anything. He would not know truth if it was starring him in the eye.
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Even if the Epstein files never get released we all know that Trump has been raping little girls since he was a teen.
It's why his folks shipped him off to military school.
Trump picked his VP carefully.
Who would assassinate Trump knowing Vance would fill his shoes?!
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
it would be difficult for iran to catch vance, rubio, johnson, and POS/POTUS all together out in the open ...
maybe later this spring at the annual white house golf tournament held at bedminster ... /s
100% agree. Why replace a buffoon with a buffoon, with the only difference being one's orange and the other wears mascara as if he was in an 80s metal band.
The Easter Egg Roll at teh White House
Very true, I'm tired of the U.S. playing "step and fetch" with Israel. Time has come for Israel to learn to live with Arab countries.
an rdx easter egg in shiny gold plastic ...
Actually, it does. Israel has had peaceful, cooperative relations with many Arab countries for a long time. And, Iran is not an Arab country.
And/or possibly a distraction from the Epstein Files!
Line'em up and you can't tell the difference between an "Arab", "an Iranian" or "an Israeli". It's their twisted religions that have had them at odds for thousands of years. You are correct, Iranians are of Persian decent but that hasn't stopped them from conducting war against Israel and supporters of Israel. We're back to religion, bigotry and greed.
I love the McDonald's Happy Meal toys on his uniform
He does too.
He's a real hero, isn't he?
Arvo Fishy..
Heck he would fit right in with the North Koreans..
that's what call tactical armor in NK ...
Yeah but, as you can see from his uniform, he is a highly decorated warrior/leader. At least among those who enjoy a nice happy meal at Mickey D's occasionally.
Ah dammit TG you beat me to it!
LOL!
I bet a lot of those "medals" are for hosting dinners for athletes
you get one if you can finish a happy meal without blowing chunks ...
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The rest of this thread was cleaned up for meta.