Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

To serve in Donald Trump’s Cabinet is to perform for an audience of one, and in the weeks since she was fired by the president, it’s become clear why Pam Bondi’s run as attorney general was a failure: She was unable to convict any of the president’s enemies. Todd Blanche, her deputy and temporary — at least for now — replacement, was taking notes. Now he is taking action.

The Justice Department has filed motions to allow Trump to build his Big Beautiful Ballroom, indicted Anthony Fauci’s former deputy over allegedly conspiring to conceal documents related to the Covid-19 pandemic and moved quickly on superfluous investigations involving the Russia probe that was opened during Barack Obama’s administration.

But this week the department really nailed it. Standing alongside FBI Director Kash Patel, who may himself soon be on the way out, Blanche announced that James Comey, Patel’s predecessor and the president’s longtime foe, was being indicted for threatening Trump’s life. This is exactly the kind of charge the president wanted to see — one so personal and obviously retributive that no one could possible mistake it for blind justice.

For those keeping track, this is the administration’s second indictment against the former FBI director and federal prosecutor. The previous case charged Comey with lying to Congress — a boring charge that no doubt disappointed Trump in its lack of legal sexiness — after numerous experienced prosecutors refused to bring the indictment. It was thrown out of court in November on procedural grounds. 

The latest case was brought by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, where the alleged crime happened. In May 2025, Comey posted a photo on Instagram that showed seashells on a beach spelling out “86 47.” The accompanying caption read “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

The term “86” is well known as a verb; wait staff in restaurants have long “86’d” orders when patrons have changed their minds. It means to cancel. Or to take the early-bird special off the menu. Or to empty the trash out back. (Those painting it as some kind of a Mafia argot are confused; the proper phrase is “deep-six” not “86.”) Throughout the Biden years, “86 46” was a widely circulated phrase online, standing for “Remove Biden.” Former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida used it in a tweet to celebrate that Republicans had “now 86’d” former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — which, incidentally, shows that the saying refers to getting rid of someone in a political sense. In 2022, MAGA activist Jack Posobiec posted something similar about Biden. Even today there are websites selling T-shirts emblazoned with “86 46.” If this case does go to trial, there will be an awful lot of people indicted for threatening the president. 

No sentient person of either party saw those wielding this phrase as making a literal, credible death threat. But the right has jumped on it in another of their coordinated hissy fits conducted on the taxpayers’ dime. There has never been a case so silly.

No sentient person of either party saw those wielding this phrase as making a literal, credible death threat. But the right has jumped on it in another of their coordinated hissy fits conducted on the taxpayers’ dime. There has never been a case so silly. 

The next day, when he noticed MAGA’s collective pearl-clutching — and was reportedly interviewed by Secret Service agents — Comey deleted the photo, denying he had posted it with any violent intent. Trump refused to believe him, and in the months since the president hasn’t let it go. Now Blanche is offering Comey up to him like a cat delivering a dead mouse to their owner as a gift of love.

While some eager-beaver Republicans, like Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who rushed to the microphones to defend the Justice Department’s actions, many in the party are concerned that this may not be a political winner. The Washington Post quoted several GOP strategists who said voters don’t want Trump litigating old grievances because they’re more concerned with inflation, gas prices and why he went to war with Iran. That’s undoubtedly true, but in a way, it’s a trap for Democrats, and they should be careful about adopting that language, which they have done in the past.

For many decades there has been a long-standing dynamic in which Republicans leave the country in shambles for Democrats to clean up. The Democratic base — along with many Independents and even some Republicans — is clamoring for accountability, but many party officials are saying that the work ahead of them is too overwhelming and they must prioritize righting the ship. Sometimes they suggest that it’s important to “lower the temperature.” This pattern began after the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974, when his successor, the establishment Republican Gerald Ford, pardoned him. Ford’s act set off a firestorm on the left, but two decades later it was being praised as steadying the country. Now we can see that it was an act that set us on the road to presidential immunity.

Most Republican presidents who followed Ford tested the law in some fashion. For Ronald Reagan it was Iran-Contra, a scandal that also involved his vice president and successor, George H.W. Bush. For George W. Bush, it was the use of faulty intelligence as a pretext for war with Iraq, Abu Ghraib and the use of torture, and the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys for political reasons. Then came Trump’s unprecedented corruption — and his attempts to stay in office following the 2020 presidential election. 

Under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department did take action and managed to convict many participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But Garland moved slowly with indicting Trump and other high-level officials, which allowed the president to escape justice.

We are dealing with the results of those decisions today, and I fear the lesson Democrats will have learned is that it was a mistake to even try — and that it’s important to focus solely on the proverbial kitchen table issues. If they do, it will give a permission slip for Republicans to repeat this cycle all over again.

The fact is that the majority of voters don’t like the idea of a president bent on personal revenge, but too few of them paid attention to Trump’s speeches during the 2024 campaign in which he declared “I am your retribution.” His motives are clearly driven by revenge, and not because he truly thinks anyone has broken the law. After all, most of the charges against his perceived enemies are acts he has done repeatedly himself, such as making threats against various officials, including posting images of former President Joe Biden that are openly violent, unlike Comey’s seashells in the sand. Trump even made fun of Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who was the victim of political violence when a man entered his house, held him hostage and hit him in the head with a hammer.

Anyone who isn’t a Trump cultist or a political hack knows the difference between holding officials accountable for abuse of power, which Trump and his administration are committing every day, and a personal vendetta against a particular individual against whom the Department of Justice, acting as the presidential law firm, has been desperate to bring an indictment, no matter how flimsy. It could not be more obvious what is happening here, and Democrats must recognize the imperative of seeking accountability for the atrocities committed during the Trump administration. 

Republicans will accuse them of being hypocrites because they criticized Trump’s insane prosecutions, but they shouldn’t fall for that line. They should bring selective and vindictive prosecutions to an end, once and for all.

Salon

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This just broke (CNN):

Maine Gov. Janet Mills is suspending her Democratic primary campaign for US Senate, clearing the way for Graham Platner to challenge Sen. Susan Collins.

“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else – the fight – to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” she said in a statement released Thursday. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”

Democrats had been bracing for several more weeks of a contentious campaign before the June 9 primary in Maine – a must-win state if they want to have any chance at capturing the Senate majority in November.

No word yet on whether incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins is concerned.

Moves by the GOP suggest it already assumes Platner-the-Oysterman will oppose Collins. Platner told donors earlier this week that that the general election in Maine has already begun, reports The Maine Monitor.

My attention has been elsewhere and I have no informed opinion to offer on Platner, his tattoos or his chances.

As someone who wishes many among the Democratic gerontocracy past their “best by” dates would move aside and make room for younger blood and fresher ideas, this reflection on Mills is encouraging (The New York Times):

Her exit is a blow not only to the two-term sitting governor but also to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and the Democratic Party establishment that he leads. Mr. Schumer, the minority leader, has for almost two decades chosen his party’s Senate candidates with little internal opposition.

That era may be coming to an end — and Ms. Mills’s ill-fated campaign is not the only evidence. In a year when Democrats have grown increasingly bullish about their chances to win back a Senate majority, several of Mr. Schumer’s handpicked candidates have struggled to gain traction in their primary contests.

In addition to Ms. Mills, Mr. Schumer and his political apparatus have backed Senate candidates in Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota who face formidable challengers in upcoming primary elections.

The DSCC backed Cal Cunningham, 37, for U.S. Senate from North Carolina in 2010 over NC SecState Elaine Marshall, then 65. (Too old, too female, and too independent, one supposes. Mills is 78.) Marshall won the nomination after a runoff primary. The DSCC cut her off without a nickel. She lost to Richard Burr in the general. The spouse tells the DSCC where it can go whenever a fundraiser calls.

The DSCC backed Cunningham again for Senate in 2020. Yes, that Cal Cunningham.

Schumer’s past his “best by” date.

Several of those challengers have made opposition to Mr. Schumer’s leadership central to their campaigns. Last month in Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won her state’s Senate primary while pledging to oppose a future Schumer bid to be party leader.

The rebuke will only grow stronger if those candidates do well in November, after which it is almost certain that Mr. Schumer would face a serious challenge to his leadership post in the Senate.

Mr. Schumer has also recruited candidates in Alaska, North Carolina and Ohio who are on glide paths to the general election.

Ahem. Schumer didn’t pick Roy Cooper in North Carolina. Roy Cooper picked Roy Cooper.

The worst ruling in a century

The Supreme Court handed down its Callais decision about the time I finished my morning posts on Wednesday. Written by Justice Samuel Alito, it is a blockbuster ruling, and not in a good way. Hours later, Rick Hasen called the 6-3 decision in a case from Louisiana “one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century.” Callais guts what the Roberts court had not already whittled away of protections for minority representation passed sixty years ago, Hasen writes, “while pretending they were merely making technical tweaks to the Act.” Of course. Alito wrote it.

Hasen’s assessment is blistering:

This decision will bleach the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and local bodies like city councils, by ending the protections of Section 2 of the Act, which had provided a pathway to assure that voters of color would have some rudimentary fair representation. It’s the culmination of the life’s work of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who have shown persistent resistance to the idea of the United States as a multiracial democracy, and a brazen willingness to reject Congress’s judgment that fair representation for minority voters sometimes requires race-conscious legislation. It gives the green light to further partisan gerrymandering. It protects Alito’s core constituency: aggrieved white Republican voters. It’s a disaster for American democracy.

Hasan explains that under the original VRA, proving intent to discriminate under “vote dilution” schemes proved difficult:

Congress responded boldly to that ruling—it rewrote Section 2 of the VRA to allow minority voters to say that plans that had a racially discriminatory effect were vote dilution. And as it was doing this, John Roberts was a young Department of Justice lawyer in the Reagan White House who spearheaded the effort to scuttle a stronger Section 2 in Congress. He failed. The new Section 2 made clear that Congress wanted to increase minority representation and alleviate the burden on voters to win these cases by eliminating an intent requirement.

The new Section 2 was a tremendous success, leading to the election of scores of minority-preferred candidates in Congress and on the state and local level. In 1986, in Thornburg v. Gingles, the Supreme Court interpreted the revised Section 2 to require courts to apply a multi-part test to determine when a jurisdiction had to draw districts to give minority voters a fair chance to elect representatives of their choice. The result of these two efforts is why today about a quarter of Congress is represented by a person of color, but it is especially thanks to Section 2.

The Roberts Court consistently has whittled away at the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, for example, with the Shelby County v. Holder  which demolished the Section 5 requirement that states with a history of race discrimination receive federal approval for changing voting rules. “When the Court killed Section 5,” Hasen writes, the Court “assured us that there was always Section 2 to protect minority voters.”

Then in 2021, the Court took the first shot at Section 2. In Brnovich v. DNC, Justice Alito, who had always voted against expansive minority voting rights on the Supreme Court, considered how Section 2 applied to laws making it harder for people to register and vote. Rather than following the text of Section 2 or Congress’s intent, Alito imposed such a tough test that since Brnovich there has not been a single successful Section 2 case aimed at these voting restrictions.

And now comes Callais. Let’s not sugarcoat things: Alito’s opinion eviscerates Section 2 as applied to redistricting. He throws out the Gingles test—while denying he is doing so—and has restored a requirement that plaintiffs prove discriminatory intent when challenging district lines. Only if a computer algorithm would protect minority voters by chance do they have a chance to win such a case. What’s worse, the state can defend their maps by claiming that they were merely engaging in partisan gerrymandering. This move is thanks to what the Supreme Court wrote in the 2019 Rucho case—that though partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, it is out of the Court’s realm to fix.

Meaning that when Louisiana’s white Republicans redistrict away black opportunities for representation, they merely need argue that they’ve drawn districts to help Republicans, not whites. Hasan calls the transparent nonsense “outrageous.”

As outrageous as convicted felon and twice impeached Donald Trump swearing an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” then cozying up to dictators and behaving as if the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are meaningless. As outrageous as the sycophants standing with him who took similar oaths that they “will bear true faith and allegiance” to a constitution born in reaction to monarchy, then making obeisance to a would-be king. As outrageous as the disingenuous behavior of six Supreme Court justices led by Roberts who took the same oath plus this one:

“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

But that’s the America we live in. For now.

The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed under the Johnson administration overturned the hundred-year-old Jim Crow system whites erected to resist the Reconstruction Amendments. The CRA and VRA helped define the last 60 years as much as the conservative movement that arose to resist them tooth and nail. They increased opportunities for minority citizens to register and vote and, over time, led to legislatures that more resembled the whole of America, a multicultural America. But like the Reconstruction Amendments before them, those laws did not change many hearts, any more than World War II drove a stake through the heart of fascism. Racists, fascists, and — as I’ve long argued — royalists, simply conceal their true selves when fortune turns against them. They learn to speak in dog whistles and whispers. They bide their time, marshal their resources, and organize until it is time again to unmask. Like now under Trumpism.

“He’s been talking recently about how he is the most powerful person to ever live,” a Trump confidant told The Atlantic. “He wants to be remembered as the one who did things that other people couldn’t do, because of his sheer power and force of will.”

“He is unburdened by political concerns and is able to do what is truly right rather than what is in his best political interests,” an administration official added in an interview with the magazine. “Hence the decision to strike Iran.”

He’s politically weak but he doesn’t care. He’s gross and vile but he sees that as righteous. And his foul character has finally fully merged with his psychopathy. What happens when the leader of a superpower falls to dementia and megalomania?

As I was Saying:

Not AI. Not SNL.

Meeting the Artemis II astronauts, Trump claimed he’s physically “very, very good” and fit to be an astronaut:

“I would have had no trouble making it. I’m physically very, very good.”

How is this real life? pic.twitter.com/foHXLcuevW

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) April 29, 2026

Even Jonathan Turley is saying that this Comey case is beyond the pale:

For over a decade, I have been one of Comey’s most vocal and consistent critics. I have dozens of columns criticizing his excesses and the damage that he has done to our system. For that reason, I would prefer to crawl into one of Comey’s conversant shells than write a column supporting him. However, here we are. The fact is that I believe that this indictment is facially unconstitutional absent some unknown new facts.

To convict Comey, the Justice Department will have to show that his adolescent picture was a “true threat” under 18 U.S.C. § 871 and § 875(c). It is not.

The First Amendment is designed to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech rarely needs protection. It also protects bad and hateful speech. It even protects lies so long as those lies are not used for the purpose of fraud or other criminal conspiracies. In 1969, the Supreme Court declared a more direct threat protected under the First Amendment. In Watts v. United States, an 18-year-old anti-war protester exclaimed, “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J.” While the court did rule that “the statute [criminalizing presidential threats] is constitutional on its face,” it emphasized that “what is a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech.”

The court ruled that the expression of wanting to kill a president is “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.” Saying the same thing in shell is only further removed from criminal speech.

Citizens are allowed to denounce and even wish a president ill. I have written about what I called this “age of rage.” It is not our first. This nation was founded in rage. The Boston Tea Party was rage. In forming this more perfect union, we created the world’s greatest protection of free speech in history. It is arguably the most American contribution to our Bill of Rights. Great Britain did not — and still does not — protect free speech as we do.

It comes at a cost. Perhaps Comey is that cost. However, he has a right to write out any hateful thoughts that come to him on his walks on the beach…We will have to wait to see if the administration has a “smoking shell” allegation that makes Comey’s shell speech more menacing as a willful and knowing threat. I cannot imagine what that would be beyond a sleeper surfer hit squad waiting for a shell signal.

He’s not the only one:

In a scathing response published Tuesday in the National Review, Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy tore apart the Trump administration’s second “bogus” indictment of Comey, calling it“even more absurd than the previous indictment.”

Comey’s offense? He posted a picture of seashells arranged on the beach in North Carolina that read “8647.” He claimed he’d come across the shells, already arranged, while taking a walk and assumed it was a political message. Some accused the former FBI director of calling to “86,” or kill, the forty-seventh president, Donald Trump.

McCarthy wrote: “After uproar generated by the administration, Comey took down the post and publicly asserted that he opposes violence and meant no such suggestion. He also voluntarily submitted to interviews with the Secret Service—which proceeded to drop what should never have been a criminal investigation. There was not a threat of violence against the president, much less an unambiguous call for his assassination. Nor would it be remotely possible, on the known evidence, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey intended violence.

“This farce, then, is nothing more than a continuation of Trump’s lawfare campaign against a political enemy. It is inconceivable that Comey could be convicted of a crime in these circumstances, but the president’s minions are putting him through the anxiety, expense, and stigma of the judicial process,” McCarthy added.

I think that says it all. It’s a joke.

Bari Weiss is getting her comeuppance:

“This isn’t what a turnaround looks like. This is what a train wreck looks like.”

That was how one veteran television executive put it to me Tuesday, after I asked about new ratings data showing that Tony Dokoupil’s “CBS Evening News” has continued to hemorrhage viewers and sink to new lows, as Bari Weiss’ hand-selected anchor struggles to hold the audience.

Indeed, according to Nielsen data obtained by Status, Dokoupil’s most recent week, beginning April 20, marked the lowest-rated stretch in total viewers since he took over the broadcast. The program averaged just 3.7 million viewers—slipping below the once-unthinkable 4 million threshold. In the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic, the show averaged only 467,000 viewers.

But that’s not the worst of it. According to the ratings data, the broadcast has now logged three consecutive weeks under 4 million viewers, a prolonged slump that was once unimaginable. The alarming audience erosion likely won’t be aided by the fact that summer is about to begin, suggesting that he may be stuck in the mud for some time. At the very least, it is not the narrative the David Ellison-owned network wanted saturating the public discourse as upfronts season gets underway.

Ultimately, April 2026 ranked as the second lowest-rated April for the “CBS Evening News” this century in total viewers—and the lowest ever in the 25–54 demographic. In that key demo, Dokoupil’s broadcast has now posted 12 straight weeks below 600,000 viewers, undercutting Weiss’ push to reinvent the broadcast to resonate with younger audiences.

Meanwhile, the Gayle King-led “CBS Mornings” is also struggling, signaling a network-wide public image problem under Weiss’ leadership. The show, which posted its worst ratings on record in the first quarter of 2026, saw its lowest-rated April on record in both total audience and the 25-54 demographic. According to the data obtained by Status, the show has now delivered four consecutive months under 1.8 million total viewers and under 300,000 in the 25–54 demo.

The right wing has Fox, Newsmax, OAN and dozens of influencers and podcast bros. If people want their news to be right wing, that’s where they go. If they want more or less straight news they (used to) go to the networks. If they want “fair and balanced” they go to CNN and if they want left leaning opinion they go to MS Now. Fox and its imitators have the right locked up. Why anyone would think that’s fertile ground for an audience, especially in a time when the Republican party is an abomination and the existing audience is actively hostile to it is a real mystery.

The contrarians like Weiss just assumed that they are the center of the universe with their grievances against the left so it made good sense to alienate the existing CBS audience by sucking up to Donald Trump.

It’s not working.

Greg Sargent typically does some of the best political interviews around and this one is no exception. He speaks with Paul Krugman about the box Trump has gotten himself in in Iran. It’s fascinating:

[E]conomist Paul Krugman lays out an expansive case that Donald Trump holds a losing hand in the war with Iran. Krugman also argues that Trump can’t seem to admit that the Strait of Hormuz problem has cornered him. Krugman also details why the situation could get worse, if Iran continues holding out and constraints on oil supply drive the global economy into recession. As Krugman puts it, this will keep getting uglier for Trump until he “swallows his pride” and accepts that he doesn’t hold the cards. This builds on the piece Krugman posted on his Substack arguing that time is on Iran’s side. Meanwhile, gas prices just hit a new high and Republicans quietly fear they’re in deep trouble in the midterms due to what Trump has unleashed. Krugman takes us through these dynamics, notes that Trump is obsessing over his ballroom in search of a win, and explains why this all could tailspin further for the GOP.

An excerpt:

…if this continues, he ain’t seen nothing yet. Because the really interesting thing—I cited some numbers from Goldman Sachs in the Substack—although the price of oil is way up, consumption of oil is only down a little bit. And mostly what’s happening is that they’re drawing down inventories of oil, that people who have oil in storage tanks, with oil that was already on tankers, is being used up, which is all happening out of the belief that the strait will reopen soon and prices will come down.

As people start to realize that that’s not about to happen—which has been happening just over the past couple of days—then the prices have to go much, much higher.

Basically, the price of oil has to go high enough to inflict enough economic damage—we have to somehow or other stop, reduce the consumption of oil by another 11 million barrels a day. Convenient thing is that right now, world oil consumption is about 100 million a day. So that’s also about 11 percent. And it takes a huge price increase to do that.

It’s not easy to wean yourself off oil, in the matter of weeks, which is what we’re kind of expecting has to happen. So this can get much—it’s ugly already. It’s ugly politically, obviously, for Trump and the Republicans to have gas hitting its highest level in four years. But it’s going to get a lot uglier very soon unless Trump swallows his pride and accepts that he actually lost this war.

Justice John Roberts has been agitating against the Voting Rights Act since the 1980s. He finally got ‘er done. As expected:

The Supreme Court dealt the landmark Voting Rights Act a significant blow on Wednesday in a 6-3 ruling that leaves the historic law “all but a dead letter,” according to Justice Elena Kagan.

In invalidating a Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana as an illegal racial gerrymander, the decision in Louisiana v. Callais, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by the court’s other five conservatives, states that plaintiffs must now show that “intentional discrimination” led to the decision to not draw a minority legislative district. This makes it effectively impossible for a Voting Rights Act challenge to win in court without a clear showing of racial animus and will nullify the law’s impact.

“When [Section 2] of the Act is properly interpreted, it imposes liability only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred,” Alito wrote for the majority. “Properly understood, [Section 2] thus does not intrude on States’ prerogative to draw districts based on nonracial factors, including to achieve partisan advantage.”

This decision is just the latest in an escalating series of judicial attacks on the historic civil rights law. But it marks “the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act,” Kagan wrote in her dissent, joined by the court’s other two liberal justices.

The immediate impact is not known, but it may lead some states to challenge Black and Latino majority districts as illegal racial gerrymanders, potentially reducing their representation in legislative seats from Congress all the way down to county commissions. With the Voting Rights Act now left nearly useless, Black and Latino plaintiffs will not be able to challenge the demolition of their political representation. And since Black and Latino voters have historically preferred to elect Democrats, this is likely to also have the effect of further tilting the House toward Republicans.

Lyndon Johnson famously said that the Democrats had lost the South for a generation when he signed the Civil Rights Act. I think they may have just lost it again, at least in the House for many more to come. And Black Americans in those states will lose the representation they’ve had for the past 60 years unless they agree to vote for opportunistic Black Republicans like Byron Donalds. Jim Crow redux.

This may have the most far-reaching effects of anything the Court has done. It’s very hard to see how Democrats can ever win majorities, within the individual states or nationally, with the GOP domination of the South now permanently entrenched.

If you thought the GOP wasn’t so bad before Trump, this perfectly illustrates why that isn’t so. They’ve been trying to do this for decades.

Getting ready for 2026, 2028 election disruptions

The difficulty in anticipating Republican ploys for subverting elections, I’ve said repeatedly, is that it almost takes a criminal mind to counter one.

TPM this morning reports on efforts by Democrats’ “Red Team” to game out possible Republican moves for which Democrats need a counteroffensive plan ready. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, is a key player:

The task force has identified “about 150 threats,” he said, adding, “So, each one of those we go through and we have sort of a matrix — what we think the likelihood is of this, whatever it is, happening, and then … what’s the damage that it could cause?” 

“So, some things could be very low likelihood, but a high impact. Other things could be highly likely that they’ll happen, but we think are relatively low impact,” Morelle explained. “Then of course, what you want to do is figure out how do we prevent that from happening and then, if it does happen, how do we respond to it?”

Morelle discussed his work on war-gaming potential election disruption scenarios for the midterms and planning an aggressive response in a TPM Special Report podcast. You can watch the interview in full here. Our conversation, which took place earlier this month, is the most in-depth look thus far at House Democrats’ efforts to confront threats to the vote. 

Some of the scenarios Morelle listed “include: intimidation by federal agents near polling places; misinformation being spread to voters; executive branch agencies trying to purge voter rolls or seize local election infrastructure; interference with state certification of congressional races; and even a potential floor fight on Jan. 3, 2027.”

But all of that we’ve seen before. What concerns me (not having a criminal mind) is the kind of cleverly devious schemes Republicans hatch that catch me blindside. Like trying to void 60,000 votes after the election is over. Frankly, I’d expect the Red Team to avoid public discussion of crafty shit like this that they’ve considered Republicans might roll out. Don’t want either to give them ideas or tip them off that we’ve anticipated their moves.

Morelle agrees, saying, “I don’t want to give the Trump administration any more ideas, nor do I want to, you know, signal what we’re doing in response to it.”

But it’s nice to know that they’re on it:

“We really started several months ago planning for the midterms. And again, you know, when the president says some of the things that he says, that sends off alerts. I mean, you cannot help but pay attention to someone who says, ‘I should have called out the National Guard,’” said Morelle. “That’s jarring. I mean, never before has a president of the United States said that, or … at one point he said, ‘I’m not even sure why we need an election. Why do we need a midterm election?’ Like, wow, no one ever says these things, but you can’t, by the same token, you can’t sleep on it.”

They’re preparing a toolkit for members and local officials, Morelle said, outlining “local procedures, deadlines, and issues in their districts to help them alert voters on how to register and get their ballots in early.”

“One of those strategies in my mind that helps us deal with intimidation at polls is, tell people, ‘vote early, mail in your ballot,’” Morelle said. “Do it as soon as you can. Check your registration status to make sure that the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t purged you or anybody else has tried to purge you and check your registration status in the first available moment. Mark your ballot, put it in the mail and send it in because they can’t intimidate people if they’re not there at the polling place.”

Overall, Morelle believes civic engagement and voter participation is crucial to confronting threats to democracy. He invoked the work of historian and author Heather Cox Richardson, who has written extensively about how apathy and disengagement have enabled the rise of fascism. 

It’s like a zombie, isn’t it?

Gas under $3, not so much

Some of us are not so Trump-addled that we don’t remember how Donald Trump promised his MAGA drones that he’d build a wall on the 2,000-mile southern border to keep out brown-skinned undesirables. It was an obsession. Mexico would pay for it, Trump promised again and again. It wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime. Instead, he diverted billions from the defense budget, declaring the need for the wall a national emergency and “in the national interest.” We know how that worked out. Mexico never paid a dime.

This season’s national emergency/obsession is his bunker/ballroom (or ballroom/bunker). After the aborted White House Correspondents’ Association dinner attack on Saturday, Trump immediately insisted that the security breach represented another national emergency. He insisted that construction on his vanity project move forward with all speed as a matter of national security. MAGA drones immediately swarmed, as another Republican president once put it, to “catapult the propaganda.”

Congressional Republicans joined the chorus, singing with “give me ballroom or give me death” fervor.

One Trump drone, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina, now wants Congress to allocate $400 million in taxpayers funds for the project.

Lindsey Graham says they are going introduce legislation that’s going to authorize 400 million dollars to be spent on building the ballroom: We pay for it by offsetting it with customs fees. The sooner we get the ballroom built, the better it is for the country. pic.twitter.com/aYS3Pi07gT

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 27, 2026

Wait. Trump’s ballroom project was not supposed to cost taxpayers a dime either. First, the estimate jumped from $200 million to $300 million to $400 million. Trump claimed to have raised over $300 million from corporations and tech billionaires, money allegedly donated to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall. Trump told reporters in October that his ballroom would be “paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine.” Don’t you worry. “The government is paying absolutely nothing.” (Neither has Trump, records show.)

pic.twitter.com/aqfoEKjaSo

— mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) April 28, 2026

The Trump Justice Department “filed a remarkable motion late Monday,” demanding in “Trump’s recognizable online voice” that The National Trust for Historic Preservation drop its lawsuit that resulted in a court injunction against construction. The National Trust declined in a letter to the Justice Department (The New York Times):

“What Saturday’s awful event does not change is that the Constitution and multiple federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction of a ballroom on White House grounds, and that Congress has not done so,” the letter said.

As for Graham, he copped to Trump’s obsession with the project:

The senator said Mr. Trump constantly brings up the ballroom to him “all the time,” even in unrelated conversations about golf or how he’s feeling.

“Like, ‘How you doing?’ ‘Where’s the ballroom?’ ‘How you playing?’ ‘I don’t know. I’d play better if you built the ballroom,’” Mr. Graham said of his conversations with the president. “It’s all the time.”

While the MAGA champion obsesses over his ballroom, he can’t extricate himself from the unsanctioned Iran war he started. He demands $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon in fiscal 2027, a 40 percent increase. The national price of gasoline is now $4.23/gallon, “stretching household budgets, with the greatest impact on lower-income consumers,” per a recent Bank of America report. Trump has no room in his addled brain for them. “Rising grocery prices in the U.S. as the result of the Iran war could be among the most politically damaging outcomes of the conflict just months before a critical U.S. election,” CNBC reported at the beginning of April. Trump’s ballroom is a national priority. Republicans’ constituents are not.

One more thing.

Not being a lawyer, I’m not qualified to sniff out all potential loopholes in the 14-page “Philanthropic Support Agreement” for the ballroom disclosed on April 22 and reported by Public Citizen. But like what happened to the $50,000 in cash White House border czar Tom Homan accepted in a bag from the FBI, I’d like to know what happens to the over $300 million Trump accepted from donors if taxpayers end up footing the tab for his gilded ballroom.

We’ve seen this movie before. As Loki said to Thor in The Avengers (2012), “Are you ever NOT going to fall for that?” The question now is: Will Americans fall for it again?