A Busy Week in Trump Outrages

Rigging Elections

Donald Trump is constantly claiming his losses (as in 2020) were “rigged,” but now he’s leading a Republican effort to rig the 2026 mid-term elections. In the process, he’s accelerating the anti-democratic process whereby politicians choose their voters instead of voters’ choosing their politicians.

Getting Republican state legislatures to gerrymander their Congressional districts to retain control of the House—and deprive Democrats of any opportunity to pass legislation, investigate the executive branch and block Trump—is only the latest of many Trump efforts to undermine American democracy.

They include trying to steal the 2020 presidential election by legal and illegal means (e.g. the Jan. 6 Capitol invasion.) Also, by usurping the powers of Congress (possible because he owns the Republican Party and punishes any deviation), disrespecting the rule of law and lying so habitually that he’s confused much of the electorate about what truth is.

He’s succeeded in prodding Texas Republicans to gerrymander five Republican-engineered House seats. Other efforts are under way in Missouri (one seat pickup) Indiana (maybe 1), Ohio (1 or 2) and Florida (maybe 1).

California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, is trying to match Texas’s departure from the principle of redrawing district lines following decennial censuses. California is one of eight states which put map-drawing in the hands of independent non-partisan commissions (six are reliably Democratic), but Newsom is asking voters to switch back to political line-drawing only temporarily, which could net Democrats five seats. 

But analysts think Democrats conceivably—but not probably— could pick up just two seats in a gerrymander war, while Republicans could net five and marginally increase their hold on the House (now divided 219-212 with 4 vacancies, 3 formerly occupied by Democrats.)

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is not buying the idea that the House will stay Republican. He recalls that in Trump’s first mid-term election, in 2018, Democrats won a net 40 seats based on Trump’s unpopularity (with job approval in the low 40s, about where they are now). 

Democrats are scarcely assured of a repeat of 2018, though. Approval of Congressional Republicans is low (in the low to mid 30s), but approval of Congressional Democrats is at an all-time low (19% to 27% depending on the poll.)

What’s more Trump has more dirty tricks up his sleeve designed to keep his majority. He’s floated the idea of demanding a new census, charging (without evidence) that the 2020 census should not have included undocumented immigrants, invalidating House districts based on that count. The census mandates counting all persons in a district, not just citizens. But Trump’s administration is in charge of the census, after all, and it might well be tampered with to benefit Republicans.

Also, on the advice of Vladimir Putin, Trump has reverted to trying to ban mail-in voting and voting machines, claiming (against all evidence) that they are “highly inaccurate.” It’s not clear that Trump could get away with this, since managing elections is constitutionally the responsibility of states, not the President. Were he to be successful in installing a paper-ballot-only system, however, it would dramatically slow down voting and vote-counting, reducing turnout especially among the aged and low-motivation voters. Conceivably these could be Democrats, though older Republicans would also be affected.

To even the playing field (or match 2018) Democrats—especially would-be presidential candidates— need to mount both effective negative campaigns (especially against Trump’s inflationary tariffs), his endangering of America’s scientific leadership, his employing of masked immigration officials to terrorize Hispanic communities, and passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” that gives huge tax cuts to the rich, and threatens Medicaid and food assistance to the poor.

Most importantly, Democrats need a positive agenda—job creation (with reminders that more jobs were created under Joe Biden—14.8 million compared to 7 million for Trump pre-COVID), more infrastructure investment, tax cuts for the middle class, lower drug prices, aggressive climate change mitigation, expansion of the first-in-decades gun safety law, more funds for local police, community policing, and violence prevention.

Other outrages this week:

Military Occupation of US Cities

Trump is on a campaign to dispatch federalized National Guard troops and other federal law enforcement personnel to Democratic-run cities (so far, Los Angeles and Washington, DC, but shortly, Chicago, and after that, he’s said, New York, Baltimore and Oakland, CA,  claiming they are crime-infested and “out of control.”

Democratic mayors and governors are unanimously against the program, claiming that crime is down in their jurisdictions and that Trump is exaggerating the problem as part of an authoritarian power grab—extending his authority over territory beyond the federal government and trying to embarrass Democrats.

They also point out that Trump presided over cuts in support for local law enforcement earlier this year. The Justice Department cut $500 million in grants for policing, crime prevention, community policing,  juvenile justice, victim services and fentanyl control. And the administration cut FEMA’s homeland security and disaster preparedness programs by 50% or $1 billion. Ironically, the jurisdiction experiencing the deepest cuts (40%) was Washington, DC.

They’ll also point out that Trump, supposedly a law and order advocate, pardoned 1,600 participants in the violent Jan. 6, 2021 invasion of the US Capitol.

Moreover, while Trump’s anti-crime campaign is receiving huge media coverage, his immigration roundups and deportations are far more aggressive and expensive. National Guard personnel are being deployed in a few Democrat-run cities, but 1,700 have been assigned to 19 states to assist ICE in immigration roundups. While the administration has cut local law enforcement funds by more than $1 billion, ICE has a budget of $185 billion, making it the federal government’s largest and most costly law enforcement agency. As a military force, it now has a budget that makes it the third largest in the world, behind only China and the US.

ICE currently has 20,000 agents, but it is offering signing bonuses of up to $50,000 to reach a target of 30,000 by year’s end in order to meet its goal of 1 million deportations a year.

The Purges Continue

In a bigger power grab than making himself, in effect, the chief law enforcement officer of American cities (and maybe their mayor) and usurping the power of states to control their elections, Trump has asserted he has the power to fire Governors of the Federal Reserve, declared by law and the Supreme Court to be independent of political control.

Trump cited his authority over the Executive Branch as his authority to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who is refusing to step down and has sued Trump, with her lawyer saying Trump lacks the authority he claims.  The case is certain to reach the Supreme Court, which has affirmed the president’s power to fire chiefs of other supposedly independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission, but has declared the Fed to be a “uniquely structured, quasi-private agency.” Were the Court to uphold Trump’s assertion of authority of the Fed, experts say setting interest rates would become a political decision rather than an economic one, potentially undermining the financial system.

Indeed, Trump has claimed that if Cook is replaced, his appointees would have a majority on the Fed’s Board of Governors and would lower interest rates, giving the economy a temporary boost which might improve his political standing. Another decision for the Court concerns the definition of what “for cause” is as the only reason in law for firing a Fed governor.

Trump claimed that Cook committed mortgage fraud when she claimed two residences in applying for a mortgage before she was appointed to the Fed by Joe Biden in 2022. Her term runs until 2038. “For cause” is generally understood to mean dereliction of duty in office, not an infraction before appointment. Cook has not been indicted or convicted of mortgage fraud. Nor have some of Trump’s political adversaries now under investigation by the Justice Department.

Ukraine Russia War Antics

Trump’s chief foreign policy initiative—peace between Russia and Ukraine—is proving to be a bust—even an embarrassment. Trump is being played by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who has demanded almost impossible terms for signing on to Trump’s peace plans—no NATO membership for Ukraine, no Western troops on Ukrainian soil, a Russian veto of security guarantees for Ukraine, surrender of Ukraine’s Donbas region including territory under Ukrainian control, and Ukrainian acceptance of Russia’s captured land.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says his country’s constitution forbids “gifting” territory to the “occupier,” that he won’t give up Ukraine’s “sovereign right” to choose its alliances, including joining NATO; that he wants firm “NATO like” security guarantees, not vague promises, and won’t agree to any deal reached without Ukrainian participation.

Putin is refusing to meet with Zelensky, claiming he is an “illegitimate” president because his term expired in March 2024 and no new elections were held because Ukraine was governed by martial law.

Moreover, Russia has stepped up its bombing of civilian targets and, in an act of contempt after he’d just had a chummy meeting with Trump in Alaska, Russia bombed a US factory in Ukraine. As Zelensky has often asserted, Putin does not want an end to the war but is dragging out peace negotiations while he tries to capture more of Kyiv’s territory—or actually fulfill his goal of defeating Ukraine.

Trump has expressed disappointment with Putin’s stance, but has never imposed the “punishing sanctions” he’s threatened. If Trump were serious about forcing Russia to sign onto a peace deal, he would give Ukraine the offensive weapons it needs to defeat Russia, which he refuses to do.

The Moral Outrage of Gaza

And in one more abandonment of simple morality, Trump has made no comment since August 22, when famine was officially declared in Gaza by a consortium of international humanitarian groups. 

They reported that 1.2 million Gazans are experiencing extreme food insecurity and 132,000 children under five are suffering from extreme malnutrition, of whom 41,000 are in danger of dying. As of this month, at least 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza including 18,000 children with thousands more missing or injured.