How Trump is deepening polarisation in US to win the 2026 elections

A little over a year from now, Americans will vote to determine which political party will control the two houses of Congress.

President Donald Trump’s Republican Party currently controls both, but its majorities are narrow (53-47 in the Senate and 219-213 in the House of Representatives).

Current polls indicate that the Republicans’ position may worsen after the elections.

Under normal circumstances, the president would seek to improve his party’s electoral standing. Yet Trump is doubling down on some of his most unpopular policies.

Read more about where Trump’s strategy may lead in the column by Richard Sherwin of New York Law School: Trump's plan for the midterms: why US President's approval rating no longer matters.

The author recalls that he told Fox News last October, if "radical left lunatics" cause trouble on Election Day, the problem "should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military." 

"That allusion to Election Day is no accident. Moreover, the vagueness surrounding the enemy’s precise identity serves Trump’s purpose. It is enough, as he recently told an audience of 800 top military leaders, to say that America faces an "invasion from within … No different than a foreign enemy,"  Sherwin writes.

According to him, these are the actions of an authoritarian leader who already tried to steal one election, and who would have no qualms about stealing the next one.

The law professor emphasises that Trump could not care less about fair elections. He cares only about power, and he will not hesitate to pursue a military occupation of American cities in order to keep it.

Sherwin argues that Trump needs only deploy heavily armed National Guard troops in putatively "hostile" neighbourhoods filled with "extremists" and "terrorists" to intimidate and deter voters.

The columnist also believes that Trump’s armed militiamen are also more likely to obey unlawful orders to seize "suspect" ballot boxes, or perhaps to enforce a suspension of elections altogether, on the pretext that civil disorder has rendered a "fair" process untenable.

"The fact that he is doubling down on unpopular policies suggests that deliberate preparations are underway to disrupt a free and fair midterm election," the author warns.

He suggests that Trump’s mushrooming army of billionaire media allies – Larry Ellison (Paramount Global Media, and soon TikTok), Elon Musk (X), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jeff Bezos (The Washington Post), and Rupert Murdoch (Fox News) – seem all too willing to help him create the pretext he needs for a military crackdown.

"In the end, scapegoats for suspended elections will be found and prosecuted by Trump’s Justice Department. Friends will be rewarded, foes will be punished, and Trump will have fulfilled his most infamous campaign promise," writes the New York Law School professor.

Finally, he recalls Trump’s July 2024 told supporters that four years later they would no longer have to vote:

"We’ll have it fixed so good. You’re not going to have to vote."

This article originally appeared on Project Syndicate and is republished with permission from the copyright holder.