Since Donald Trump took office for a second term in January 2025, his administration has been relentlessly focused on interfering in this November’s midterm election through unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering, issuing unconstitutional executive orders, making threats against state election officials, and spreading false conspiracy theories asserting he lost the 2020 election due to massive voter fraud. In a recent speech, Trump promoted the false narrative that the Chinese government interfered in recent elections. The president’s effort to end mail-in voting and pass the SAVE America Act that would likely disenfranchise some 20 million voters, have thus far failed. His administration has seized ballots and election data in Georgia and Arizona, as it launched FBI investigations of a voting rights group in Ohio.
Trump’s multi-pronged strategy to manipulate the outcome the November election includes a threat to order the military to seize ballots in key cities and declare a national emergency that could suspend the counting of ballots. All these actions designed to interfere in the election come amid Donald Trump lowest approval ratings of his two terms, while several polls indicate Democrats hold an advantage in voter preference ahead of the midterm election.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with J. Patrick Coolican, editor-in-chief of the Minnesota Reformer, who discusses his recent op-ed, “The Blueprint for Fighting Trump’s Attempt to Sabotage the Election, Drawn Up in Minnesota,” about progressive organizer Doran Schrantz ‘s 14-page internal memo titled, “Act Free to Be Free: A State and Local Pro-Democracy Framework,” which asserts that local organizing is the most effective defense against Trump midterm election subversion.
J. PATRICK COOLICAN: On the one hand, we have this advantage of an election administration process that is very decentralized. So all the votes are counted at, generally speaking, at the county level, and there’s thousands of polling stations and counties that are doing the work. So it’s not all centralized in the federal government. So that protects it, insulates it to some degree. So he’s using all these other tools at his disposal that are their intimidation and they seem to be trying to create chaos around election tabulation. So, if you put all these together, instead of thinking of them as discrete events, if you really think about them as a group, you see that there’s a purpose here. And so, think about what’s going on in 2026.
In Georgia, there was the FBI raid of Fulton County. In June, FBI agents raided something called the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. The Justice Department is suing states over their refusal to provide voter rolls. They’re apparently investigating the Wisconsin results from 2020. So it’s a lot of the 2020 vengeance tour here. The Justice Department’s sending election monitors to suspiciously, blue states. Look at all this stuff. And a lot of people might say, “Well, you’re just drawing some conspiracy theory here.” But I think if you look at the past and Trump’s behavior the last decade, I mean, his first major election was the Iowa Caucus. He lost. And remember what he did? He immediately said it was fixed. And so that is his MO. And then of course in 2020, he tried to fix the election. It’s pretty clear. And so why wouldn’t he try to do the same thing again?
And I think people who don’t see that, and you mentioned the lackadaisical response of the Democratic elites, to not see that I think is to be blind, willfully blind. And I think that’s part of the reaction of a lot of Democratic primary voters around the country and why they’re siding with these outsiders and Democratic socialists and so forth, because they’re frustrated that they look at the Democratic elites and they see people who seem to have put blinders on to what is potentially happening here.
SCOTT HARRIS: In your article and in the memo written by Doran Schrantz, there’s a real serious discussion about the need for preparations well in advance of Election Day to prepare for massive civil disobedience and just large numbers of people in the street, because that’s the lesson we’ve seen from other nations that have risen up to prevent a fascist or authoritarian takeover in countries all over the world. We’ve seen it on our TV screens now. Now we may be in the thick of it ourselves.
J. PATRICK COOLICAN: I mean, the one thing I would add is that the types of things that they want people to do are not just prepare for large demonstrations, although that is certainly important, but there needs to be legal, political press and public, tactical and operational grassroots deployment. So there’s all these different categories of different roles that people need to play. And if people are looking for something to do, that definitely would be see if there’s a civil society group in your state that is doing this kind of work, or at the very least you can sign up to be an election observer or an election judge. And so that way you can be a witness to everything. But the preparation needs to start now. People understand who counts the votes and then who certifies the votes.
I mean, she (Schrantz) has this amazing paragraph in the memo about doing a power analysis. And she says, “Knowing who sits in which seat is not enough. You have to ask who has leverage over that person? What does it take to move or block a specific decision? Who are the allies already inside the system? What is the procedural timeline for each key decision? Who could be positioned for sabotage, etc., etc.?” So as the aftermath of 2020 was happening, we were all sort of, I think a lot of us were just in the dark. We’re like, “Okay, what happens next?” And I think this time it’s just important to be truly prepared for all these different possible scenarios and then even do rehearsal. So if they show up with a bunch of MAGA types demanding that the vote counting stop, then you’d have to have a counter demonstration and be there to support the people who are counting the votes.
You need to have a press operation set up. You need to have a legal operation set up. It’s not something you can do the day of the election like, “Oh, this is happening. Now what do we do?” I mean, that cannot be the response on the day after or the night of the election or the day after or the days after.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with J. Patrick Coolican (17:57) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack or social media, subscribe here.
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