Five Questions We Should Be Asking About 2026 and 2028

As the next elections approach we need to begin asking some new questions.

In part one of this series I described the five questions we need to stop asking about the 2026 and 2028 elections. In the second, and final, part of this series I will explore five relevant and important questions to ask regarding these upcoming elections. These questions reflect the regime change that is already further along than many recognize and help us think about elections in the context of post-democratic America.

1) What will we do if Trump refuses to leave office after losing in 2028? As the 2020 election approached, the Democratic Party belatedly came to the realization that Trump was unlikely to concede or facilitate a peaceful transition if he lost. Because it took so many party leaders so long to recognize something that had been glaringly obvious to some of us going back to 2017, they were unprepared. One result of this was the violence Trump instigated at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. That violent riot was terrible and deadly, but due to the uncharacteristic moral courage of then Vice-President Mike Pence, it did not succeed in overturning the election.

In January of 2029, Trump will be much better prepared. If Trump loses, we can expect Trump to instigate violence that is larger in scale, more widespread and supported by a much better strategy than what occurred in late 2020 and early 2021.

The big lie of 2020 could be come the huge, majestic, gigantic or enormous lie of 2028. It is essential to prepare a counter-strategy to this. That probably entails mobilization, communication, legislative and legal components. It will be a lot of work, but if we do not begin thinking about that yesterday Trump might prevail even if he loses the election. To pretend that Trump will go along with election results he does not like or will not seek reelection is pollyannishness that verges on complicity.

2) How will we respond to ongoing efforts to make elections less free and fair? Even before Trump ran for president in 2016 voter suppression was a sufficient problem in the US that it could, and probably had, been the difference in a few house races, and probably even a few statewide races. However, as we move closer to the 2026 and 2028 election, Republican efforts to undermine free, fair and Democratic elections will grow substantially.

Trump’s executive order of March of this year, according to the Brennan Center, “aims to illegally overhaul and take control of major parts of the nation’s election systems…the order could disenfranchise millions of American citizens, compromise the security of sensitive personal data, and disrupt election administration across the country.”

Because of that executive order, we must now be prepared for the Stephen Miller wing of the regime to do things like audit voter lists, purge people for the crime of having a Spanish sounding last name, force states to stop programs aimed at registering voters of color or making it people for all people to vote. We also have to expect ICE agents to be visible around polling places, ballot drop boxes and campaign offices in the days leading up to these elections. This will be a strong discouragement to many American citizens who have dark skin and an accent who were planning to vote.

3) What can we do about a Democratic leadership that is still living in 1996, or maybe 2006 or 2014? It is now more than apparent that the Schumer-Jeffries led Democratic Party is not the vehicle to lead the fight against fascism. We may still have to cast our votes for Democrats in both these coming elections, but we would be foolish to expect them to understand either the real nature of the problem or to craft a strategy for defeating fascism.

Continuing to turn to the leadership of a party that has demonstrated it is not up to the task would be a mistake, but for the moment there seem to be few other options. It is imperative to build organizations outside of the Democratic Party, not to contest elections, but to provide the organizational and mobilizational strength needed to defeat the still ascendant fascist movement.

4) What can we do if, as is very likely, the regime in Washington continues to harass Democratic elected officials? In the last few months the New York City comptroller has been arrested and later released, a US Senator from California handcuffed, state legislators from Texas threatened with criminal prosecution and the Democratic nominee from New York threatened with deportation. All of these politicians are Democrats; none did anything that was close to illegal-and Zohran Mamdani is an American citizen.

There is no reason to think this will stop. FBI director Kash Patel’s sole qualification for his job was loyalty to Trump. If Trump asks Patel to investigate a Democratic politician, have a politician arrested or otherwise harassed, Patel will do what he is told. To think this can’t happen is, at this point, nonsensical. We may be moving into election cycles where Democratic politicians are badgered by the justice system for imaginary crimes, immigrant politicians will face threats of deportation if they are too strongly anti-Trump and where the threat of violence is always present. We need a strategy for confronting this.

5) How can we organize as surveillance increases, control of the media tightens and a climate of fear deepens? We have grown accustomed to contesting elections in a relatively free media environment, but we cannot assume that will continue. Over the last months we have seen Trump sue, threaten to sue or settle with several media outlets. Other media platforms seem to be preemptively bending to Trump’s will. The likelihood that Bari Weiss, who has been instrumental in providing a respectable seeming media cover for many Trump supporters, will lead, in one capacity or another, CBS News is one glaring example of this.

Additionally, it is very possible that a Patel-led FBI will turn its enormous surveillance capabilities on Democratic politicians, activists and strategists as these elections approach. It is not clear what we can do to address these problems. However, reverting to what for many is an instinctive denial that this scenario is possible is precisely the wrong approach.