A perilous 60-day window has DC on high alert

My friend Alex Wise, the host of Sea Change Radio, sent me a text recently saying that he’s finally feeling hopeful about democracy. The Democrats are poised to win the House, perhaps the Senate as well. He’s still worried, though. The president is highly unstable. The Republicans cannot be trusted. “What are Democrats planning on doing to protect the country from the very perilous interregnum period from November 3 and January 1, 2027?” he asked.

It looks like the biggest thing they are doing is raising awareness of that very fact – that the period between Election Day and the day the new Congress is seated will be very perilous. According to NPR, the Democrats have organized to warn the public that Donald Trump will claim election fraud, no matter what, and they are preparing “their state and local counterparts to act when necessary to ensure election results are honored.” Mountains of lawsuits have been pre-written and are ready to be filed when needed. Congressional Democrats are standing by. Ditto for Democratic attorneys general. There are plans underway for “a massive presence at the polls” by Democrats and outside watchdogs, according to the AP.

The administration is already testing the waters. The Justice Department is subpoenaing records from California over phony claims of noncitizens voting. It is launching a probe into Alaska’s Senate race, after recent reporting revealed efforts to recruit an independent candidate with the same name as the Republican incumbent, with the result being voter confusion. (I’m no expert in Alaska election law, but that’s probably not illegal, however distasteful it might seem.) There are scattered reports of DHS agents being around polling places. FBI agents are leaking their concern about being dispatched to them. The administration said it would send 1,000 “poll monitors.”

So far, these are half-hearted moves on Trump’s part, but even so, everyone seems to expect them and is prepared. Most of the effort will probably die in court, as most of it did after the 2020 election. His remaining moves would have to be truly dramatic to stop what’s coming – seizing ballots, arresting election officials, declaring martial law, or coordinating with Speaker Mike Johnson to refuse to certify the results. All of these would get the same saturation coverage that the J6 insurrection got, which would be bad for Trump but worse for his party, as it would justify an offensive posture unseen from the Democrats.

Above and beyond all this is Trump’s biggest obstacle: a constitutional order that, in one way or another, virtually all Americans believe in. The Constitution is clear about who runs elections: states and localities. It is not the federal government. It’s sure as hell not the president. He can cry about “voter fraud” all day, but that’s none of his business, as states already outlaw it. From the get-go, it would be challenging to convince Americans to overturn the constitutional order to stop fraud, but that goes double for him. He’s the least popular president of our lifetimes.

I don’t want to sound too optimistic, as it is hard to predict what an demented narcissist will do. Donald Trump will still be president. There’s a lot of damage he can do. (For instance, knock down the Kennedy Center in revenge.) That said, our focus on the domestic side of his descent may be blinding us to the international side. He’s chosen to side with Russia against Ukraine. He’s decided to look away from China’s espionage. The Iran war is still going badly. (The economy is still burning up.) Trump ordered a plan to ramp up the war post-midterms. US Senator Chris Murphy was brief on it. Yesterday, he said “their plan is insane,” adding “it will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law."

Murphy could not comment further on a classified briefing, but published reports suggest the plan has more of the same bombing Trump has been doing, only more of it on Iran’s energy infrastructure (ie, oil). Not only would that constitute war crimes – hence Murphy’s remark about the “destruction of our commitment to the rule of law” - but it would justify Iran widening the war even more to include the energy infrastructure of the surrounding Gulf states. Bottom line: if you think diesel is expensive now, just wait.

There is a sense of the general collapse of the world order, which in turn could threaten the social order at home. Trump lifted sanctions of Russian oil and withheld arms shipments to Ukraine. The Timesreported that Trump is “exploring” the idea of restoring Russia’s slush funds, which it would use to pay for its imperialist expansion. Trump, Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk appear to have conspired to sabotage Ukraine. Evidently, Musk and Trump unplugged Starshield, Ukraine’s defense uplink, while Putin launched a devastating ballistic missile attack. In response, Ukraine restarted attacks on Russia’s refineries, driving up the price of everything, and Russia is aiding attacks on Saudi Arabia’s refineries, driving up the cost of everything. Meanwhile, China is not only helping Iran kill American soldiers. It appears to have bribed Trump to hide a spy operating in his inner circle. In the global race for advanced technology, like artificial intelligence, China looks like the winner.

As for Trump’s inner circle, disorder is brewing there, too. Tech stocks fell today on news that monopolies like Amazon and Google are spending more on AI than they are taking in. Word is spreading that AI is doing what many expected: decimating the labor market. A Goldman Sachs report said “higher AI adoption is now associated with weaker employment growth and higher unemployment.” AI is already wiping out entry-level jobs, leaving people under 30 in a lurch. (There are 71 million in Gen Z.) Spending on AI is basically floating the economy right now, as food and housing take up half of household incomes, according to Bloomberg. There will be hell to pay when that bubble bursts. Billionaires are running for cover under Trump.

Again, there’s a lot that could go sideways after the election in terms of a demented narcissist president reacting to what promises to be the greatest rejection of his life. But from where I am standing, the bones of the republic are probably going to hold up, however precariously. It’s the other stuff – war and economic chaos – that is right now driving me to distraction. My friend Alex is totally right.

These are “very perilous” times.

In more ways than we can count.