cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/24718
President Donald Trump on Monday declared that the Republican Party should “nationalize the voting” in the US and take away individual states’ power to administer their elections.
While speaking with Dan Bongino, a former FBI deputy director and current podcaster, Trump rehashed the false allegations he’s made in the past about Democrats only winning elections through the help of undocumented immigrants.
“These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally!” Trump falsely claimed. “Amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say… ‘We should take over the voting in at least… 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Trump: "These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally. The Republicans should say, we should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that I won that show I didn’t win. You’re gonna see… pic.twitter.com/H5hT3OvtLE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 2, 2026Trump then continued to rehash his lies about winning the 2020 election that he lost to former President Joe Biden.
“We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes, we have states that I won that show I didn’t win!” he said. “Now, you’re going to see something in Georgia, where they were able to get with a court order the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things come out. But, you know, the 2020 election, I won that election by so much. And everybody knows it!”
In fact, Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden at both the national level and in the state of Georgia, which has a Republican governor, a Republican secretary of state, and a Republican-run Legislature.
Last week, the FBI executed a search warrant at Georgia’s Fulton County election hub and hauled out boxes of ballots as part of an investigation related to the 2020 election.
Some Trump critics reacted to his latest outburst about “nationalizing” the vote by noting how incredibly unlikely the president would be to succeed in such an endeavor.
“Neither Trump nor the GOP in Congress have this power, and the only way they do this is if we decline to stand up for our rights,” wrote Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, in a social media post. “He’s had a string of electoral defeats and rightfully fears the midterms. His outbursts are real threats, but they come from weakness. Tough shit, he’s going down. No Kings.”
MS NOW contributor Philip Bump also expressed skepticism about Trump’s scheme, which conflicts with Article I of the US Constitution.
“Trump doesn’t have the power to federalize elections, which obviously doesn’t mean it’s OK that he’s saying things like this,” he wrote. “The stuff about ginning up bullshit in Atlanta—we’ll see.”
Political strategist Murshed Zaheed likewise advised his social media followers to “take a deep breath” before panicking over Trump’s plans.
“Trump cannot change election/voting rules with [executive orders],” he wrote. “Of course they are going to try crazy stuff—but this is desperate attempt to gin up fear.”
Other critics, however, said that Trump’s remarks needed to be taken as a direct threat to democratic governance.
“He’s saying the quiet part out loud,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). “Trump and MAGA Republicans can’t win with their unpopular policies at the ballot box, so they want to steal the 2026 election.”
Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan expressed even greater alarm.
“The last time he started talking like this, his allies minimized the risks and we ended up with January 6,” he warned, referring to the deadly riots carried out by Trump supporters on the US Capitol that sent lawmakers running for their lives. “This time we must take him literally and seriously. These comments are a five-alarm fire for democracy. In a functioning republic, he would be impeached and removed from office today.”
Trump’s comments come as Republicans in Congress push a bill that would enable massive voter purges, impose photo ID requirements, and ban ranked-choice voting, universal mail-in ballots, and the acceptance of mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day.
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
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“Neither Trump nor the GOP in Congress have this power, and the only way they do this is if we decline to stand up for our rights,” wrote Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, in a social media post. “He’s had a string of electoral defeats and rightfully fears the midterms. His outbursts are real threats, but they come from weakness. Tough shit, he’s going down. No Kings.”
Trump: “I’m gonna do X.”
TV legal experts: “Trump does not have the power to do X.”
The GOP: “Trump loves to talk. That’s just Trump being Trump.”
Liberals: “He can’t do X! But if we does - we will stop him!”
Democrats: “Because of Trump - the price of coffee went up 15%.”
Trump does X. In unsurprising news - he is not stopped.
idk, the last No Kings protests had such an impact that I think I’m going to kick the football. You’re wearing blue, I trust you. Don’t do what you did last time.
My favorite thing about No Kings is that to juice the numbers of people to be as high as possible - they always make zero demands for their “protests”.
:angery: u better not create a monarchy mr. president sir. then we couldnt have a good president after u
Ezra Levin
The only other Ezras I can think of are…
- Ezra Klein
- Ezra Pound
Are there any good Ezras?
-–
Edit
Coincidence can be amusing. Ezra is a an uncommon name but I just a post by somebody named EZRA ROSE.
i know i’ve been pretty quiet but here’s the result of my January: a totally handmade, fully-functional marionette created for a local winter-themed puppet show. she’s called the Winter Maw & she’ll eat you alive, just like real winter
https://bsky.app/profile/sheydgarden.bsky.social/post/3mdvsjoelnc2b
I was in a book club with an Ezra once. Can’t say for sure if he was good, but he didn’t suck which is more than I can say for the aforementioned Ezras
Better than EzraNon-sucky Ezra
See this is the more likely outcome than outright banning elections or declaring marital law. I’ve only ever seen governments cancel their elections after becoming military juntas and the US doesn’t seem like it’ll become that.
It’s waaaaay easier to rig an election than to stop having elections. People really don’t like it if you stop having elections, at a “storm the presidential palace” level
People acting like they haven’t been rigging them all along is very funny. The primaries are the most rigged shit ever.
No worry, I’m sure the opposition party will write very angry letters and Tweets. Maybe one of them will rehearse an amazing TikTok video, she will record 6 different takes of her leaving a meeting and casually discussing with somebody about the topic while walking.
So many sets of crossed arms
They will write very angry letters.
Ahem.
They will write that they are angry in their very strongly worded letters.
Strong enough to give a Liberal and brief, yet noticeable high. Then, back to work.
Tulsi gabbard is leading an investigation into the 2020 election. They are absolutely going to use that investigation as an excuse to fuck with the election. No one can or will stop them from doing illegal shit, as we are seeing.
