The United States is now in the midst of the most serious attack on the nation’s democratic institutions, rule of law and checks and balances on executive power in modern presidential history. Everyday Donald Trump and his authoritarian regime are violating constitutional norms and civil and human rights, as he employs political violence and weaponizes the federal government to repress his perceived political enemies. All this as Trump and his co-conspirators in the White House, are working to dismantle civil rights law, as part of a blatant white supremacist agenda.
For months the administration has been attempting to rig the 2026 midterm Congressional election, through unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering, and voter suppression tactics that include Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders to take over the administration of elections from state governments. Trump and Republicans are now trying to pass the SAVE America ACT bill, which would eliminate mail-in ballots and require all voters to present proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, that millions don’t have, that would effectively disenfranchise more than 20 million voters.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Steven Levitsky, David Rockefeller professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard University and co-author with Daniel Ziblatt of How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority. Here he reflects on what he sees as Donald Trump’s most serious long-term threat to extinguish democracy and the president’s current attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2026 midterm election.
STEVEN LEVITSKY: I study democracy. I spend my time talking and thinking about defending democracy and that’s what I focus on. But in some ways, I think as much damage is being done to our democracy, even greater and more irreparable damage is being done to the U.S. state to our federal bureaucracy, meaning the politicization of government agencies, the weakening of our government agencies, the massive brain drain and corruption of our government agencies, including the politicization of the armed forces. States are really hard to build. They’re easy to corrupt and to break and to weaken.
They’re very, very hard to build. In the best case, it will be decades before we repair the damage that’s been done just in the last 15 months to the U.S. state. And I think even more damaging than that is what Trump has done to what remained of the liberal international order. The rules-based international order, which was never perfect, it was never entirely rules-based, but it was something.
And the U.S.’s standing in the world, which was in decline already, but has plummeted under Trump. And our alliances and the liberal international order that the United States, for better and worse and imperfectly upheld over the last 75 years, I think that’s been shattered and probably cannot be rebuilt. So our democracy, I think, can be rebuilt. I worry a lot about the politicization of the state. I think the most thorough going transformation of our institutions is that of the Republican party, which has been transformed into a thoroughly authoritarian political party and will continue to do damage to our democracy long after Trump is gone.
SCOTT HARRIS: Professor Levitsky, there’s great concern about Donald Trump’s unconcealed plan to derail or manipulate in some way the outcome of the 2026 midterm election. There are attempts to rig the ’26 election through unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering, voter suppression tactics, massive purges of the voter rolls, targeting communities of color and young people primarily and Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders. And, the proposed SAVE Act legislation that would have the president dictate how local and state elections will be organized, such as the attempt to eliminate all mail-in, absentee ballots and require all voters to present proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate that millions don’t have that would immediately disenfranchise more than 20 million voters.
Professor Levitsky, what can be done right now in your view by the opposition Democratic party, the courts and ordinary citizens to ensure our country holds a free and fair election this November? And there’s the prospect of emergency declarations—the imposition of the Insurrection Act or martial law, that although they sounded fantastical and crazy a few years ago, I think we have to be prepared for the worst. I’m sure you agree.
STEVEN LEVITSKY: Yeah, we do. I mean, what is crazy and what is deeply troubling is that all of the things that you just mentioned are possible. Some of them are not super likely, some of them may be attempted and not achieved. But one of the most sort of obvious indicators that we are no longer a stable democracy like Canada or Spain or Germany or Costa Rica is that we don’t know whether this will be a more or less normal election which the opposition party would almost win. Or this will be a crisis-ridden election in which the Republicans refuse to accept the results or attempt to manipulate the vote. Or even—although this is a little less probable—or even an outright stolen election through a declaration of emergency. You listed a number of efforts that Trump has talked about. I would add paramilitary forces, ICE forces, border patrol agents near the polls intimidating voters.
I think that’s a real possibility. He didn’t mention the possibility that in a few cases, the Republicans would cry fraud and that the House leadership wouldn’t seat the winners of the election.That’s a legal possibility. And so it’s extraordinarily important that citizens be vigilant, that they’d be aware they have to begin communication with their representatives.
And it may be that at some point we need to mobilize, we need to take to the streets. We still fortunately have three broad avenues to defend our democracy. One is the ballot box, another is the courts and a third is the streets, it’s citizen activism. And it will take without question a combination of all three of those things to protect our democracy.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Steven Levitsky (27:51) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter.
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