Call Out Midterm Minimizers
Contributor Jemar Tisby, via Substack
Last Thursday, President Donald Trump gave a speech about preventing fraud and interference in the 2026 Midterm elections.
Memory of the words themselves may fade, but what they set up could shape the country for years to come.
That speech laid the groundwork to undermine the 2026 midterm elections.
A “Stolen” Election and Claims of Fraud
In his address, Trump warned of "shocking vulnerabilities" in election infrastructure and released documents he claimed exposed hidden fraud and foreign interference, though experts said little was new.
He alleged China had acquired 220 million voter files, called voting machines and mail ballots "inherently corrupt," and claimed a DHS review found roughly 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote, offering no evidence any votes were altered.
He also revived debunked 2020 claims and accused the Biden Justice Department of a coverup, even as his own adviser conceded there is zero evidence a foreign power ever flipped a vote, all building toward a call for new voting restrictions before the midterms.
He said all this despite the fact that he had more than 60 court losses in cases alleging fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
He lost.
Neither four years of saying it was stolen nor an attempted insurrection will change that truth.
Photo Credit: NinthGrid
What’s At Stake in the 2026 Midterms
But the truth does not matter in a slow-moving coup.
What matters is not whether the claims in this speech were accurate—they were not—but simply that he made them.
Now he can take extraordinary and unconstitutional action in the midterms and point back to this speech.
He’s setting the stage to say, “See! I told you back in July that the elections weren’t safe. Now I am forced to intervene.”
Possible interventions, based on his own words and those of his allies, include:
Issuing executive orders seizing federal control over election rules
Declaring a national emergency.
Deploying federal agents to the polls.
Purging voter rolls
Ordering mid-decade redistricting.
Requiring proof of citizenship, not just legal ID, to vote
Some of these efforts, like requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register, are already being proposed at the state level.
This is not business as usual—no matter what anyone tries to tell you.
This is not an ordinary election that decides whether Democrats or Republicans will have the power to make laws.
This election will determine the fate of all other elections in the foreseeable future.
If that sounds hyperbolic, then you are underestimating the desperation of this regime and their willingness to take any measures to maintain power.
Challenge Them, Every Time
What can we do?
Most of us do not have a direct line to Senators or Representatives. We can’t rewrite a presidential speech. We can’t claim a national platform to sound the alarm.
But we are not powerless.
The bare minimum we can do to protect the midterm elections is refuse to let anyone minimize their importance in our presence.
We have a responsibility to speak up between now and November whenever we hear anyone suggest these elections do not matter. If you hear someone shrug off these elections, don’t let it slide—challenge them, every time.
We must interrupt that ignorance.
The first step in protecting democracy is stopping normalization of apathy.
We must give them the list of possible catastrophic outcomes if the president has his way.
We must let them know that even if we cannot pinpoint every move the administration will make, one prediction is certain: they will reject any election outcome that does not go their way.
The hallmark of democracy in this country has been that elections determine the transfer of power. That fact, more than any other, has ensured that new people can enter federal office without resorting to violence.
That tradition was severely tested on January 6, 2021, when a mob invaded the U.S. Capitol Building to prevent the certification of a lawful election.
People died that day and in the aftermath.
Political violence, in general, has become more commonplace.
Apathy Is Not an Option
Let the people around you who would throw up their hands in exasperation about the midterms know that we could become a nation where the next governor, senator, congressperson, or president is decided by violence, not votes.
Let them know that this administration is already doing all it can to undermine confidence in the electoral process.
It does not matter if all the facts and public opinion are against the people claiming voter fraud.
They merely need to declare the threat of impropriety and then seize ballots, pressure Secretaries of State, dispatch ICE to polling locations, or claim national control over elections entirely.
Don’t Let Them Trivialize the Midterms
But too many people choose not to vote because they don’t pay attention.
They believe all the pundits sounding off are merely handwringing and catastrophizing.
They believe that life before and after the 2026 midterms will be substantially the same. And that the United States as a nation is destined to remain an imperfect democracy.
They may believe that, but the people who believe the United States is being taken over by liberal, Left, woke, un-American forces do not.
They are willing, and even eager, to become an autocracy in which power rests not with the people but with the most ruthless faction.
So what can we do?
We can sound the alarm at the local level.
We can make sure that no one around us—at the dinner table, the workplace, our school, or our faith community—gets away with saying these elections do not matter.
We will not let them say, “Both parties are the same.” We will not let them off the hook when they claim, “My vote does not matter.”
And we will tell them to vote. To inform themselves. And to prepare to defend democracy like never before.
No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.
The smallest act of defense is refusing to let anyone trivialize what’s at stake in these elections.
