Por Nick Licata
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President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that unless the Republicans win the midterm elections, the election will have been stolen by the Democrats. He goes even further, claiming that a Democratic election is an existential threat to the nation.
Using taxpayer money, he ran a TV ad in which he grimly warned the country that only his Republican candidates could “cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”
These remarks raise legitimate concerns that Trump and his allies will disrupt or defy the results of November’s midterms—whether by obstructing voting or trying to block ballot counting and certification. He has set up a justification for saving the nation from an evil dictatorship by voiding enough votes to secure a Republican victory.
Trump has already begun these efforts. He has ordered the Department of Justice, through his former private attorney, to send 1,000 election officials to voting places. What is their purpose? According to the DOJ website, they are to monitor voting by helping assess compliance with federal voting rights laws around the country.
And this is where we see the “deep state,” that conservatives so fear, taking shape to ignore state authorities, as granted by the Constitution, in running elections. Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution explains that the States have the primary authority over election administration, the “times, places, and manner of holding elections.”
Congress may intervene only in a purely secondary role to alter or create election laws, and only in the extreme cases of invasion, legislative neglect, or obstinate refusal to pass election laws.
The Constitution gives the president of the United States no role in federal elections. Nevertheless, Trump has designated the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to recruit federal observers to work in cooperation with DOJ to execute Trump’s plans to determine whether the elections are fair. Trump is delegating his authority to judge the fairness of these elections to two people who have no credibility in guaranteeing an impartial assessment: the Director of OPM, Scott Kupor, and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Kupor, who has no experience in governance, served as the managing partner of one of the nation’s largest venture capital firms. As soon as he was appointed, Kupor allowed DOGE agents to access personnel databases — a move that a district court later halted with an injunction. The other person is Trump’s former personal attorney, U.S. Blanche, who will carry out whatever Trump wishes, as evidenced by his continued refusal to release all the Epstein Files.
One can reasonably conclude that Trump is not currently relying on a direct action as extreme as declaring martial law. However, he is creating a situation in multiple states in which chaos will result if a significant number of votes are voided or their legitimacy is questioned until the DOJ determines whether they can be counted.
Under this game plan, if local officials who are Trump allies refuse to accept the final vote, the DOJ would have a basis to halt the final tally. A substantial portion of the public would view this move as an attempt to alter the election results.
Demonstrations and violence could result. If this happens in multiple states, Trump could issue an Executive Order declaring a national emergency, allowing him to take control of a state’s National Guard without a governor’s approval. If this happens in multiple states, Trump could issue an Executive Order declaring a national emergency, allowing him to take control of a state’s National Guard without a governor’s approval.
Citizens can protect the democratic election process if they are prepared.
The following guest essay by Paul Rogat Loeb and Jungmin Choi details how citizens in South Korea stopped a would-be dictator’s coup.
First, a word on Loeb and Choi. Loeb is the editor of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: Perseverance and Hope in Troubled Times, now in a fully updated edition that was just released. Choi is a campaigner with World Without War, a South Korean antimilitarist organization based in Seoul. This piece was adapted from Choi’s essay in The Impossible; a shorter version appeared in The Nation. I’ve abridged the essay while keeping the main ideas and essential elements intact.
How to Stop Trump’s Coup: Lessons from South Korea
How do you stop a would-be dictator? The first lesson is recognizing that it’s possible, as South Korea showed a month after Donald Trump’s reelection. Their example should hearten those of us worried that Trump and his allies will disrupt or defy the results of November’s midterms—whether by obstructing voting or by trying to block ballot counting and certification.
After escalating conflicts with South Korea’s National Assembly and bribery accusations against his wife, President Yoon Suk Yeol abruptly declared martial law on December 3, 2024. Like Trump, Yoon had already appointed loyalists to key military posts, and his state prosecutor used libel laws to attack political opponents and journalists.
Yoon now banned all political activity, protests, and strikes, and claimed the right to detain anyone he chose. He ordered the military to enter the National Assembly by force to remove the members, “including the use of firearms if necessary.”
But 16,000 protesters rushed to the building to protect the legislature, helping National Assembly members and staffers push past the arriving soldiers and climb the walls to get in. As Korea’s opposition leader and others headed to the parliament, they live-streamed calls for people to join them.
Citizens outside nonviolently blocked armored vehicles and buses. When military helicopters landed inside the assembly grounds, parliamentary aides defended the main building against the troops they carried, building barricades from furniture and using fire extinguishers to slow soldiers breaking through the windows. In the end, resistance from citizens, the Assembly’s security forces, and legislative staff kept the troops from occupying the main chamber.
Within three hours enough members had reached the chamber for a quorum, and unanimously exercised their constitutional right to revoke Yoon’s martial law. For the next ten days, citizens surrounded the parliamentary complex in freezing temperatures—chanting, singing K-pop songs, waving lightsticks, and calling for Yoon’s impeachment. The protests grew to over a million people by December 14, when the assembly, including a dozen members of Yoon’s own party, impeached him.
Four months later, Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment, and Yoon’s party lost the presidential election that summer. Yoon is now serving a life sentence for insurrection, and his Defense Minister, Prime Minister, and Interior Minister are serving lengthy terms.
Here are five key lessons for America from South Korea:
1. Elections matter all the more under a would-be dictator.
Nonviolent movements have overthrown seemingly entrenched dictators. But authoritarian power is far easier to challenge when the opposition also holds institutional power. Because South Korea’s opposition party had won major gains in the April 2024’s election, they were already blocking some of Yoon’s initiatives. Because broad, decisive margins are our best guarantee of securing our elections, we can’t let fear of Trump’s interference deter us from doing all we canto get people to vote.
2. Act quickly to confront attempted seizures of power.
As soon as Yoon declared martial law, activists and opposition party leaders called on people to assemble. The crowds arrived before the military’s armored vehicles and helicopters, and helped assembly members and staff enter the building despite the military troops. Had they waited, martial law would have become the status quo, making protest much harder.
In America’s upcoming midterms, some points of contestation are national, like the successful Supreme Court battle over mail voting. But most are and will be local, which means citizens and local governments need to prepare to protect polling places and vote-counting centers if disruptions occur, including having police protect them from potential attacks by Trump supporters.
It matters that US courts have blocked many of Trump’s anti-voting initiatives and that groups like LULAC are suing in advance to block ICE from polling places, legal scholars are circulating arguments for why judges must reject requests to seize ballots, and state Attorney Generals and Secretaries of State are pre-creating emergency legal briefs.
Protect Democracy and the Brennan Center have published detailed checklists for election officials, and for citizen groups refuting potential administration arguments. But massive and immediate nonviolent protest will be also essential if Trump tries to shut down voting or disrupt the count.
3. Encourage security forces to stay loyal to the Constitution
Citizens who confronted the martial law forces said many soldiers showed open or subtle resistance to the coup. They didn’t actively repel the crowds in front of the building or forcibly remove the aides resisting inside.
Assembly members with military and National Intelligence backgrounds played crucial roles in the resistance. They’d watched the president appoint loyalists to key military posts and attack opposition journalists. They’d proposed amendments to make martial law harder to declare and made specific plans to assemble if Yoon instituted it. This helped them respond immediately.
In our own context, it mattered enormously that six US senators and House members with military and national security backgrounds created last November’s video on the duty to refuse illegal orders. That’s why the Trump administration attacked them so virulently, and why it was a major victory when a Washington, DC, grand jury refused to indict them. We need to keep highlighting this duty to service members, while reminding fellow citizens how Trump and his cohorts break the law daily.
4. Prevent the coup’s initiators from consolidating power.
The day after the attempted coup, civil society organizations nationwide held press conferences demanding the president’s resignation, impeachment, and arrest, and the arrest of his ally, the defense minister.
A coalition of 1,550 civil society groups held weekend demonstrations in front of the Constitutional Court. Metal, railway, and transport workers’ unions led strikes and demonstrated at local ruling-party offices. History teachers explained the relevant precedents.
A widely circulated PowerPoint debunked Yoon’s arguments and offered slogans to use. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions created a website to send text messages to anti-impeachment assembly members—swamping their phones.
The lesson for the US is that power gets consolidated in stages, and that every stage we block makes the next easier to prevent. It also shows how much countervailing power matters, particularly when state and local governments resist election interference.
5. Create festive, diverse forms of resistance.
As South Korea’s demonstrations grew, K-pop light-sticks replaced traditional candles as the protest symbol. The sticks gave the rallies a concert feel, as protesters turned K-pop hits into chants. This atmosphere was crucial in drawing younger Koreans.
It’s important that Indivisible and No Kings have been conducting Hands off the Vote trainings with the ACLU and recruiting poll monitors, and that the long-standing 866-ourvote national hotline is expanding its reach. Whether or not people cast challenged ballots often depends on whether trained observers are present to stand up for their rights.
Will it be enough? Veteran nonviolent organizers, the Freedom Trainers, have mapped out how people can respond to multiple scenarios, from pre-election attempts to suppress the vote to attempts to block vote certification.
As South Korea’s demonstrations grew, K-pop light sticks replaced traditional candles as the protest symbol. The sticks gave the feel of a concert, as protesters turned K-pop hits into chants. America’s major rallies, like No Kings, already combine festivity with defiance, a combination key to helping people keep going.
Have pro-democracy organizers across the US engaged enough people to prevent Trump from overturning election results he doesn’t like? We won’t know until Election Day and the days immediately after. Meanwhile, South Korea’s example can inspire and instruct us as Americans defend our own beleaguered democracy.
Nick Licata is author of Becoming A Citizen Activist, and has served 5 terms on the Seattle City Council, named progressive municipal official of the year by The Nation, and is founding board chair of Local Progress, a national network of 1,000 progressive municipal officials.
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