Photo by Samuele Macauda

“Over the past few decades, Washington has grown more respectful of other democracies and mostly avoided intervening in their campaigns.  Presidents and their aides have rarely even expressed a preference about who wins an election elsewhere.”

–New York Times Editorial Board, October 25 2026

“Someday, perhaps with America’s covert assistance, the Iranian people will be able to install a government that answers their being for freedom and modern life.”

–David Ignatius, Washington Post, October 223, 2026

The mainstream media, particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post, still do not fully recognize the malicious role that the United States has played in interfering in foreign leadership succession, particularly in societies trying to establish democratic rule.  Ignatius’ support for a covert U.S. role in regime change in Iran is particularly obtuse in view of the U.S. role in overthrowing the democratic regime in Iran in 1953, which is still a factor in the tension between the United States and Iran 73 years later.  The Times belief that the United States has “grown more respectful” of democracies is particularly ironic in view of the steps that the Trump administration has taken to undermine democracy here at home.

In the excellent book Regime Change by Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Trump boasts that “no other president could do some of the shit I’m doing.”  The “shit” that Trump is referring to includes the seizure and deportations of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people and the imprisoning of tens of thousands more; launching a war against Iran with no word to the Congress or the American people; and attacking such key elements of our democracy as our universities, news networks, and prestigious law firms.  In doing so, Trump has created a “constitutional autarchy” in the absence of a true democracy.

In the run-up to this week’s election, Trump has attacked the integrity of  U.S. elections and has tried to assert more federal control over the voting process, which the Constitution mandates to the states.  Trump has preemptively challenged the certification of Alaska’s Senate election and has used the Department of Homeland Security to find evidence of illegal voting without any indication of significant noncitizen voting.  The search of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington residence was one of the worst examples of a weaponized Department of Justice targeting and vilifying Trump’s perceived foes.

The election interference is particularly corrosive to American democracy as Trump supports voter ID laws that would disenfranchise many individuals and used federal agents to raid a Georgia election office.  The visas of critics of Israel’s genocidal war have been revoked, and the identities of critics of ICE have been demanded from social media companies.  Two indictments have been secured against former FBI director James Comey, and a third indictment is being sought.  Conversely, thousands of rioters at the Capitol in January 2021 have been pardoned.

Trump’s war on democracy has support from Silicon Valley technology billionaires who have supplied surveillance software to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and helped to fund Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which fractured some of the best elements of the U.S. government.  DOGE had the support of Russell Vought, currently the director of the Office of Management and Budget, who argued in 2023 that “we want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected when they wake up in the morning; we want them not to want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as  the villains.”

If democrats and the Democratic Party ever regain power, their biggest challenge will be restoring trust in the government itself.  Eight years of Donald Trump have created an era of mistrust and misinformation.  There is greater political division than at any time since the Civil War 175 years ago.  Cynicism has reached a new plateau, with large numbers of citizens no longer having trust in government or the mainstream media, which are essential to maintaining the guardrails of any democracy.