Trump guts federal election integrity while our oblivious or complicit MSM rearranges the deck chairs

Another boat sinker iceberg is MAGA's rigged elections

What Trump and MAGA elites mean by “election integrity”

Various sources are reporting that Trump has just fired all EAC (Election Assistance Commission) commissioners. The EAC is within the larger FEC (Federal Elections Commission). That anti-election integrity move comes on top of Trump previously neutering the entire FEC by blocking appointment of commissioners. That left the FEC without a quorum and thus powerless to much of anything within the scope of its powers.

Without any commissioners to run the FEC, that federal agency is no longer capable of policing corruption and crimes by special interest money buying elections or politicians by any means that might meaningfully influence an election. The killing off of the EAC ends federal assistance for states to run and coordinate free and fair elections.

In the recent authoritarian MAGA USSC Trump v. Slaughter decision, the court gave Trump unlimited power to fire anyone in the executive branch for any or no reason. The firings of the EAC commissioners is fully protected by the new authoritarian power the USSC just gave Trump.

In other words, it is now perfectly legal for Trump to steer the ship of American democracy straight into huge icebergs of tyranny and corruption. MAGA’s goal is obvious. Sink the whole damned American experiment in a poisoned sea of tyranny and corruption by, e.g., subverting elections, starting with the 2026 midterm elections. This is what Trump, MAGA elites and their predecessors have always meant by “election integrity”. Now we have MAGA-style election integrity, whether we want it or not.

Not defending democracy and the rule of law isn’t harmless, it’s extremely harmful

The MSM’s worse than crappy reporting

One of the major systemic damages that Trump and MAGA elites and their radical right authoritarian predecessors have targeted is the MSM. Intelligent reporting is mostly gone. It has been replaced by Switzerland-style milquetoast neutrality. Most of the MSM no longer acts as if it gives a s#*t about what happens to us or our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties. The MSM has collapsed into a state almost total structural failure.

How can anyone rationally argue that MSM reporting about Trump and MAGA tyranny, corruption, and democracy-killing is neutral? Easy peasy. Here’s how. The structural failure here is that most MSM outlets are narrating democratic backsliding. The outlets are not sounding a civic alarm anywhere close to the actual risk of tyranny that isolated pockets of fact reporting fail to convey. What’s happening with the gutting of the EAC and related agencies illustrates how the MSM dutifully records the institutional damage, sometimes calling it “extraordinary”, gasp! , but they do not come close to treating it as the critical constitutional or democracy emergency it actually is. What Trump and MAGA elites are doing is not extraordinary. It is catastrophic! That’s far beyond the MSM’s milquetoast extraordinary.

Why is MSM reporting neutral? There are multiple reasons. One is that political reporters are trained into “balance,” sourcing from both parties and avoiding explicit normative claims. Even when one actor is clearly attacking democracy or elections, and degrading rule‑of‑law institutions, the default MSM frame is “ this is just a controversial move,” not “this is authoritarian tyranny attacking democracy and elections”. That is a huge problem. In my opinion it’s a major source of MSM failure.

Also, there is some fear/threat-inspired CSI syndrome (complicity, stupidity, incompetence) going on. Some reporters, opinionators and editors really do believe they are doing a good job by reporting facts but stopping short of connecting MAGA’s tyranny and corruption fact dots. Some are quietly or openly complicit. The dots are scattered all over the entire freaking MSM ecosystem. Connecting them is what Trump and MAGA elites hate and oppose. It takes a lot of effort to do that. Apparently, Trump and MAGA elites have threatened or scared the MSM’s dot-connecting job into almost complete oblivion.

And of course, there’s money and the profit motive. MSM outlets cannot survive without sufficient revenue. Trump and MAGA elites know that and apply pressure, in addition to pressure from advertisers. Trump has retaliated through denying access, regulatory threats, and public vilification. That is intentional. Threats and vilification put pressure on MSM self‑censorship. It forces the MSM to hedge in how far to go, if any at all, beyond the bare descriptive fact minimums. Collectively, the extremely powerful, always present profit motive and MAGA threats are always there pressuring to kill off the MSM’s dot-connecting duty. In other words, there are powerful incentives for the MSM to not do its damned job properly. So, it doesn’t. This is like falling off a log — MSM failure is not rocket science, it’s capitalism.

The gigantic gap between MSM’s neutral descriptions of MAGA’s ghastly democratic and rule of law damage coupled with the its lack of urgent alarm is what a person can call “neutrality”. As discussed here, such an assessment is opinion based on (1) the totality of the facts and truths I am aware of, and (2) application of my good faith, sound reasoning to those facts and truths. That is from the point of view of someone who staunchly supports secular, pluralistic democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties. So yes of course, opinions will and do differ a lot. But the reasons for seeing abject MSM failure and even complicity is open for everyone to assess for themselves. Some will see it, others will not.

Q1: Is Trump firing the EAC commissioners and neutering the entire FEC for unspecified election integrity reasons true, or is that just lies and the face of rising corruption and tyranny in America under Trump and MAGA elites?

Q2: Is it the job of the MSM to connect the dots for us, or is there some moral, rational or other justification to not do that, while sitting on the sidelines and sticking with Switzerland-style neutrality?

Info sources:

In sweeping attack on elections, Trump fires leadership of key federal voting assistance commission

Trump Administration Fires Members of Independent Election Group — “The firings and a resignation render the Election Assistance Commission useless. The moves come as President Trump seeks to impose control over how ballots will be counted in the midterms.”

As of Thursday, the FEC Can’t Enforce Campaign Finance Laws — and That’s Only One of Its Problems

Dismantling of federal efforts to monitor election interference creates opening for foreign meddling

Trump fires Election Assistance Commission members ahead of midterms

The Media and the Ballot Box: Confronting 21st Century Voter Suppression

US Democracy Is in Danger and Mainstream Media Is Silent

U.S. Corporate Media Fails to Call Out GOP Voter Suppression Campaign

Why Do Mainstream Media Sugarcoat Trump’s Attacks on Democracy?

What the Media Missed

What The Mainstream Media Got Wrong About The 2024 Election

About the Democrats and their messes

With Graham Plattner's crash & burn flameout in Maine, the Dems take another hit. What a colossal mess. But MAGA propagandists are ecstatic. MAGA media is using Platner’s implosion to argue that Democrats and the radical left are morally bankrupt hypocrites who protect their own predators and Nazis with tattoos while pretending to be the party of women, decency, and anti‑racism. MAGA’s demagoguery is framed as proof that liberal criticism of Trump, Kavanaugh, Gaetz, etc. was just cynical power politics, not principled opposition.

The gatekeeper function failed

Well, sometimes a big flameout happens when a party throws its support to a candidate the party did not properly vet. I recall the same thing happening in San Diego years ago when the Dem Party supported Dem congressman and sex predator Bob Filner for mayor. He got elected and then had to resign over sex scandals that went on for years. What a colossal mess. Apparently the Dems are either just too damned stupid or too damned incompetent to learn from their messes. Arguably too damned arrogant too.

I know, I know, the people should choose, not the party. I get it. But do most voters do serious opposition research on candidates? Hell no they don't. They can't. The bad stuff people need to know is hidden as much as possible. Did most Trump voters know he was a failure as a businessman because he was forced to file for bankruptcy 5 or 6 times? No. Most probably still don't know that. The ones that have heard that fact either say it's either a big fat lie or no big deal if it is true.

Where gatekeeping matters

It's useful to know that the two parties are very different about sex scandals. The Dems usually sacrifice their own . . . . . eventually. We all remember Eric Swalwell's recent flameout in California. 

A NYT article (not paywalled), Does a Sex Assault Claim Kill a Political Career? It Depends., points out the huge difference. Dems sacrifice their sex scandal perps, but the Repubs usually defend theirs and lie and deny their bad guys did anything wrong. Trump is the poster boy for sleazy sex scandals that most Repubs forgive and/or forget. Their bad sex stuff tends to be denied or downplayed. Trump won in 2016 after the accusations of at least a half-dozen women who said he groped or forcibly kissed them. He denied every one allegation. And, he then denied all sexual improprieties alleged against Brett Kavanaugh, RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth. A vast majority of his party did the same. Each accused Republican sleazebag denied the accusations and got rewarded with real power.

And, the Epstein files. Epstein files, Epstein files, Epstein files, . . . . . . 

Messaging matters too

A NYT editorial board opinion (not paywalled), The Democrats Can’t Go On Like This, raises a common criticism about the Dem Party: "Democrats do need fresh, charismatic, younger contenders, and they should stop treating the next name in line as an entitlement. .... What is the party’s answer on immigration, moving beyond its proper outrage at President Trump’s methods to include an affirmative account of who should be allowed in and how? What would it do about the cost of housing, beyond lamenting it and suggesting inadequate fixes? What does it want from the public education system?"

In other words, the editors are arguing that Dem messaging sucks. Well, duh. That has been true and obvious for years. 

Apparently, the Dem party correctly thinks that Washington is broken, but incorrectly believes that nothing can be done. Why stage a fight over specifics that will exposes divisions? But that's backward. Democrats still believe government can work. They just haven't yet clearly and concretely articulated exactly what they would try to do. Vagueness in messaging to say doesn’t make the Dems look unified. It makes it look as if they have nothing to say. They surrender policy debate to authoritarian MAGA propaganda.

The NYT editors argue that Platner’s appeal was that he seemed to stand for something. Maybe he did. He was angry on voters’ behalf about an economy that is rigged for the powerful. He was blunt about saying so. Voters in Maine responded to that. Now he's gone, and the idiot dinosaur Susan Collins will be very likely re-elected for another 6 years of incompetence and support for MAGA tyranny and corruption. 

What a mess.

Update: Trump's 2026 election rigging efforts

He believes it was stolen without 

a shred of evidence

Trump’s 2026 midterm strategy is not just about campaigning harder; it is about structurally rigging the electorate by a federalized crackdown on voting access. The main weapons he is using are (1) demagoguery and lies, (2) the SAVE America Act, and (3) various hardball threats centered on the “election integrity” smokescreen. He promises Republicans in congress that they ‘will not lose an election for 100 years’ if they do what he says.

One of the things he wants the Senate to do is to get rid of the filibuster. That would give MAGA kleptocratic authoritarianism complete control over congress. One of his lies is that there is a grave radical left communist threat that requires to do what he tells them to do. Another of his lies is that extreme measures are needed to stop massive voter fraud, despite Trump and MAGA propagandists not showing one shred of evidence.

Obviously Trump is a dictator-kleptocrat. He clearly doesn’t believe in democracy, two-party rule or voting rights for citizens.

Some think it was rigged, but there still is not a shred of evidence of widespread fraud or cheating

The SAVE America Act Attack

Trump says that the SAVE America Act is his No. 1 priority for 2026. He has repeatedly pressured House MAGA politicians to pass it. To ram it through the Senate, he is demanding the Senate kill the filibuster. The current version of the bill is an amped‑up successor to an earlier version of the SAVE Act. The current proposed bill requires require documentary proof of citizenship to register, typically a passport or birth certificate plus photo ID. It also imposes strict photo ID requirements nationwide for all federal voting.

Every voter is affected. Mail‑only registrations are eliminated, in‑person and mail voters must clear ID checks, and states must aggressively scrub voter rolls of supposed non‑citizens using a revamped national database that has already mistakenly booted eligible US citizen voters off the rolls.

Disenfranchisement by design, not accident

Voting‑rights groups and election scholars make clear that the SAVE America Act will disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, disproportionately low‑income, young, Black, Latino, naturalized citizens, and older voters without ready access to underlying documents. Passports are held by a minority of Americans, birth certificates can be costly or difficult to retrieve, and name‑mismatch rules routinely entangle women and naturalized voters.

MAGA propaganda justifies radical authoritarian election rigging for “election integrity” based on lies and exaggerations about “crooked” and “communist” elections. Other than Trump’s election fraud efforts, there continues to be no evidence of meaningful non‑citizen voting or mass fraud anywhere in US elections. Trump simply promises Republicans that if they end the filibuster and pass the bill, they will not lose an election for 100 years. That is a candid statement of authoritarian partisan intent. It is not a neutral or valid concern for “election integrity.”

Threats & coercion of states

Even if the SAVE America Act stalls in the Senate, Trump and House Republicans are already building a pressure system around it: tying similar requirements to Help America Vote Act funding, threatening states that decline to share voter data with the feds, and exploring reconciliation to jam through key pieces like national ID standards and roll‑purge incentives. Trump has also leaned on states and local officials with investigations and prosecutions premised on vanishingly rare non‑citizen voting. That is to scare and chill administrators who resist Trump’s election-rigging demands. The MAGA lie cynically marketed as “election security” is in fact a multi‑front attempt to hard‑wire authoritarian advantages in voting rules before voters ever see a ballot.

Q: Are Trump and allied MAGA politicians sincere about election integrity, or is this a propaganda smokescreen to help MAGA authoritarians rig elections so that Dems cannot win power for 100 years?

Info sources:

Trump Promises Republicans They ‘Will Not Lose An Election for 100 Years’ If They Do What He Says — “America will never be a communist country. We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish, stupid and unwise”.

Trump moves to use the levers of presidential power to help his party in the 2026 midterms

The SAVE Act Would Rig Our Elections

Trump is obsessed with passing the SAVE America Act. Here’s what it would actually do.

A Republican plan to overhaul voting is back. Here’s what’s new in the bill

Trump administration threatens Oregon elections leaders with criminal prosecution over noncitizens voting

House passes GOP elections overhaul — The SAVE America Act faces a filibuster roadblock in the Senate even as conservatives seek out workarounds.

SAVE Act voter ID bill is on the minds of Trump and Congress: What to know

These House GOP election proposals could end up in a reconciliation bill — (MAGA politicians in congress are trying to figure a way to avoid the filibuster to get the SAVE Act passed)

Manufactured Outrage: MAGA keeps its base armed, afraid, and shockingly deceived

Lots of reported evidence shows that governance under Trump and his MAGA authoritarianism has degenerated into, among other awful things, an irrationally extremist pro-gun, anti–public health project. MAGA’s authoritarian-kleptocrats treat gun death and injury, drug addiction, and other health threats and harms as acceptable collateral damage. The point is to maintain a a weaponized, white-hot culture war. A major part of MAGA’s project to deceive and manipulate the American people depends on hiding existing data and analysis, suppressing collection of inconvenient new data and analysis, fomenting social division, and keeping the MAGA base in a permanent state of irrational moral outrage, grievance and fear. An article the NYT recently published (not paywalled), Trump Administration Guts Efforts to Prevent Gun Violence, Suppressing Reports, and earlier NYT reporting (not paywalled), Trump Administration Announces Moves to Sharply Curtail Gun Regulations, exemplify reporting about this.

Corruptly pro-gun with public health damage

Trump and elite MAGA goons in power have intensified efforts to deregulate guns. They have obliterated dozens of federal rules on background checks, assault-style weapons, and accessories that make semi-automatic weapons more lethal. Meanwhile, gun violence remains a leading cause of premature death in the US. Public health analyses repeatedly show that gun violence is a major public health threat, costing hundreds of billions annually and imposing heavy burdens on emergency medicine. The data consistently shows that lax gun laws and higher firearm deaths go together. To keep Americans polarized, upset, and disinformed, MAGA policy is to weaken gun violence preventions. Trump and MAGA elites have targeted agencies like CDC that support gun-violence research. Trump has cut funding and reduced efforts to establish evidence-based violence interventions.

Deliberate polarization around guns

Survey research on MAGA Republicans finds elevated acceptance of political violence and dehumanizing rhetoric. Those attitudes help make firearms in political and civic spaces more dangerous. Right-wing authoritarian demagoguery media and elites frame even modest gun regulations as existential assaults on “real Americans”. The point is to feed a perpetual outrage cycle among rank and file MAGA supporters by providing irrational, evidence-contradicted rationalizations for mass shootings and blocks gun safety laws and regulations that majority public opinion supports. MAGA’s tactic to weaponize identity on this issue is intentional. That is how MAGA’s wealth and power movement helps maintain supporter cohesion, and keep disinformed supporters mobilized against imagined internal enemies. The real internal enemies here are corporations and ideologues profiting from deregulation or defending indefensible authoritarian ideology.

MAGA’s policy of hiding inconvenient truth

When honest, good faith public health experts describe gun violence or overdose deaths as crises requiring evidence-based responses, Trump and MAGA-aligned organizations attack the experts and their inconvenient science as partisan “propaganda”. They simply work to strip funding or authority from health agencies and fire people who sound the alarm about gun violence. The same pattern applies to Covid, mental health, and social harm reduction generally. Experts are always smeared, data collection is attacked as lies, and programs that reduce gun violence, overdoses or suicide risk are caricatured as coddling criminals. In MAGA’s morally rotted, demagogic information ecosystem, public ignorance is not a byproduct or accident. It is a core policy goal. An informed public might start asking why “pro-freedom” politics keeps producing such measurable, preventable carnage, cost and misery.

Source

Radicals and crooks blocking inconvenient research isn’t new: For context, pro-gun anti-violence data extremism predates Trump and the modern, authoritarian-kleptocratic MAGA wealth and power movement. An early research paper in 1993 on gun ownership, Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home, discussed evidence that gun ownership was associated with increased domestic gun violence. That single paper triggered a vehement backlash from the NRA and gun manufacturers. That single paper triggered (1) propaganda that conned idiot ideologue politicians in congress, and (2) “campaign contributions” that bought corrupt politicians. The gun industry with its ruthless lobbyists bought what amounted to a federal ban on funding gun violence research. For decades federal funding for gun violence research was severely limited, despite some key idiot players in congress saying that wasn’t their intent. Trump and MAGA elites in power have choked off and gun-violence research through budget cuts and political threats. So in practice we are still in a functional ban on research. So here we sit in 2026, a far more ignorant society than if the gun-ammo industry had not bought their gun violence research ban from congressional crooks and idiots.

Q: Are Trump and his MAGA elites right to dismiss public health experts as liars and inconvenient public health science as lies, or are they mostly just trying to honestly inform us in good faith?

Info sources:

Gun Control for Health: A Public Health of Consequence, December 2022

CDC Data Is Helping Combat Gun Violence. But It’s at Risk of Disappearing.

Preventing Armed Insurrection: Firearms in Political Spaces Threaten Public Health, Safety, and Democracy

Opinion: The MAGA-gun lobby’s rationalization of mass shootings

MAGA Republicans’ views of American democracy and society and support for political violence in the United States: Findings from a nationwide population-representative survey

Politics v. science: How President Trump’s war on science impacted public health and environmental regulation

Scientific Integrity Losses and Lessons for the 116th Congress

Trump administration restricts CDC research and messaging with layers of oversight