‘When You Think of It, We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’
The New York Times | Opinion | Thomas B. Edsall | May 5, 2026
President Trump hates to lose.
Heading into the 2026 midterm elections, you can’t say that the president hasn’t warned us, over and over, that he will do all he can to prevent the congressional contests from turning into a humiliating Republican rout.
“It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,” Trump told Reuters in an interview at the beginning of the year. He claimed that his presidency had been so successful that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Video source for GIF
This is one of the most frightening articles I've read this year. Edsall outlines the steps Trump will likely take to interfere with the 2026 midterm election to ensure that Republicans continue to hold power.
USING THE NSPM-7: Edsall warns that Trump can use the Sept. 25, 2025 National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), in which Trump "grants the Department of Justice, the Treasury, the I.R.S. ... a license to label left-wing groups as domestic terrorist organizations and directs the Department of Justice to prosecute them 'to the maximum extent permissible by law.'” [emphasis added]
A NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARATION: Trump could also declare a national emergency. According to the Brennan Center's Elizabeth Goitein, "A declaration of national emergency by the president unlocks statutory authorities contained in 137 different provisions of law." [emphasis added]
[See more under the cut.]
INVOKING PEADs: Edsall also notes the "secretive creation of presidential emergency action documents [i.e., PEADs]" could be used by Trump. According to Keep Our Republic's Joel McCleary, PEADs can be used "to suspend fundamental constitutional rights, detain civilians, seize property, impose martial law and censor communications. They require only a presidential signature."
A "LAYERED," SELF-NORMALIZING SYSTEM: According to McCleary, "The three [NSPM-7, national emergency declaration & PEADs] together form a layered system: NSPM-7 operates day-to-day, building the infrastructure and the target lists. National emergency declarations provide the escalation mechanism — broadening executive power under statutory cover. And PEADs sit at the top of the pyramid, ready for the moment when the constitutional order itself is suspended. Each layer normalizes the next."
NSPM-7 + PEADs = DETAINING PROTESTERS: According to former Clinton administration deputy assistant secretary of state Jonathan Winer, if protests happen because of Trump's actions, Trump could, "direct the attorney general to treat coordinated demonstrations as organized political violence. He could instruct the F.B.I. and Joint Terrorism Task Force to identify organizers, map funding sources and examine any connections — real or alleged — to foreign actors. Federal agents would then make arrests. They would arrest individuals at protests, whether or not violence has occurred."
DETAINING PROTESTORS IN DHS DETENTION CENTERS: The DHS is building huge detention centers that McCleary believes are "being built for a purpose or scale beyond what immigration enforcement alone would justify." In other words, these detention centers are likely being built not only to detain immigrants but also to detain protest organizers and protesters.
NO HELP FROM SCOTUS OR CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS: Edsall does believe that the Supreme Court would likely interfere too much, given The Six's support of the "unitary executive" theory, and the supine Republicans in Congress are likely to go along with Trump's plans.
[ All emphasis above added ]
I highly recommend taking the time to read this article using the above gift 🎁 link, which bypasses the paywall.
New directive targets “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” opinions
With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence. Called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, it’s being referred to as “NSPM-7” by administration insiders.
...
It’s hard to overstate how much different NSPM-7 is from the over 200 executive orders Trump has frantically signed since coming back into office.
An executive order publicly lays out the course of day-to-day federal government operations; whereas a national security directive is a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus. National security directives are often secret, but in this case the Trump administration chose to publish NSPM-7 — only the seventh since he’s come into office. [...]
The pre-crime apparatus is no longer theoretical. Americans are now being prosecuted for meetings, messages, and protest activity…
{Just how far away are we from a fascist police state? Very close for sure, and some would say we’re already there. Thom Hartmann points out this administration is disregarding the first amendment of our Constitution, i.e. freedom of speech and assembly. We will know…
Are you on the list of 'domestic terrorism' indicators?
President Trump's budget request to Congress contains the largest counterterrorism spending increase in years — and buried inside it is a new FBI-led center dedicated to “proactively” hunting Americans the government classifies as so-called domestic terrorists.
