Operation: Midterm Lockdown

Trump is laying the groundwork to impede upcoming midterm elections. Trump's allies in Britain are celebrating him at CPAC.

Donald Trump’s regime this week is preparing the ground for a major authoritarian crackdown ahead of upcoming US elections – likely even worse than what we’ve already seen to date. Here in Britain, Nigel Farage, Liz Truss and the President’s other UK lackeys are all at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC GB), salivating over the prospect of ‘Making Britain Great Again.’

Let’s begin with the President’s speech last night. In summary, he warned of Deep State “cover-ups”, unsubstantiated claims about Chinese election interference, and “vulnerability” in the nation’s “easily compromised” electronic voting system.

The White House released documents as “evidence” of these claims, but it doesn’t seem like they actually read them. Rather than confirming anything Trump said, some of the heavily redacted intelligence files instead suggest that Russia tried to interfere on behalf of Trump in 2020, with one declassified briefing claiming that the Kremlin tried to “orchestrate a high-profile corruption scandal” and push narratives about “voter fraud resulting from mail-in balloting.”

Ironically, Trump’s proposed solution – the ‘SAVE America Act’ – is built on this exact, ostensibly Putin-derived narrative. If passed it would heavily restrict mail-in voting on the basis of fraud, in addition to requiring all voters to provide proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Trump is also reportedly directing states to purge their voter rolls of ‘non-citizens’ or other ‘ineligible’ voters.

But it gets worse. The regime may also be making good on Trump’s previous threat to sic the military against what the President has called “the enemy within.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing Congress to approve a whopping $350 billion in new military spending, claiming funds were needed for “fighting communism on our own shores.”

“THE BARBARIANS ARE INSIDE THE GATE,” Johnson wrote on X. “We are fighting right now in Congress over whether we’re going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic OR trade that in, dismantle the foundations and GO DOWN THIS DARK ROAD OF DEATH TO COMMUNISM.”

The fact is that there is no force in American politics that can remotely be described as communist. It’s clear from Johnson and Trump’s prior comments that they’re actually talking about Democratic politicians, particularly a new wave of young progressives including New York City’s Zohran Mamdani. (The UK, in having the NHS, would presumably be considered communist by this definition).

Trump has also signed a directive called NSPM-7. According to White policy chief Stephen Miller, it “directs all of our intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, de-bank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country. “

What ‘political terrorists’ is he talking about? The US security state is increasingly framing anti-ICE protestors, environmentalists, anti-tech movements (there is a notable grassroots opposition to the construction of AI data centres), and anti-war campaigners as violent ‘far-left’ terrorists.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made this clear on Thursday, when he hosted a ‘Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism’ with delegations from more than 60 countries attending.

“We are facing a transnational threat,” Rubio said. “These are not distinct and isolated cells. They are interconnected networks. [Left-wing extremism] has always been driven by a hatred, above all else, of civilisation itself.”

Of course, there was no mention of the many far-right hate crimes or violent attacks that have taken place in recent years. No mention of the school shootings that have tragically become normalised in America. No mention of the January 6th insurrection which tried to forcibly halt the machinery of democracy. Right-wing racist violence is orders of magnitude bigger than ‘left-wing terrorism’ (to the extent that even exists – I'm hard-pressed to find much evidence) – but they’re of course only interested in what’s politically expedient.

Speaking of violence, Trump’s immigration agents recently killed two people in the span of a week. Border Czar Tom Homan, asked about the killings, blamed Democrats for telling people to avoid ICE. He said:

“There will be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws.”

The midterms are going to be a chaotic affair indeed, with Trump likely to set ICE, intelligence services, and possibly the National Guard against his own citizens as they attempt to go to the polls (which will be harder to access because of his incredibly strict new voter rules).

And if there was ever a sign the UK isn’t above this kind of thing, it’s the fact that Trumpworld came to London this week. Nigel Farage, as I write this, is speaking at CPAC – an all-American, rock n’ roll fuelled weekend of far-right fear-mongering, put together by Liz Truss. Funded by crypto cash and host to a slew of far-right infuencers, conspiracy theorists, evangelical Christian nationalists, and election deniers, their tagline is “Save Britain. Save The West”.

We haven’t (and won’t) hear a peep from any of the UK politicians at CPAC about any of Trump’s escalations. No discomfort with the threats against political opponents, no concern about the militarisation of domestic politics, no awkward questions about voting rights. Just applause – and, one suspects, a little bit of professional envy.

The one slender silver lining: the halls at CPAC UK looked conspicuously half-empty. Reform UK has fallen on average seven points in the polls. Perhaps ordinary voters in Britain are finally beginning to see this increasingly anti-democratic politics for what it is – more so than the people on Liz Truss’ stage would like us to believe.

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