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For President Trump, right behind retribution as a guiding principle comes projection: He falsely projects onto his enemies the sins of which he’s guilty.
Trump, whose vision only seems to extend backward, lately has renewed his tired lies that the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections were rigged against him. As he yammers away, he’s also openly attempting to fix the 2026 midterm elections for Congress by brazenly goading Republicans to redraw congressional districts. If he succeeds, it could prevent the widely favored Democrats from capturing majority control of the House — just as they did in the 2018 midterms of his first term — and with it the power to block his agenda and investigate his evident abuses of power.
But the president’s rigging goes beyond elections, to all aspects of governance, if his cruel, chaotic maladministration can be called that.
On Wednesday, the government said second-quarter GDP growth was 3% annualized. On Friday, the government said job growth had cratered, pointing to recession.
Don’t like the weak jobs numbers from the nonpartisan bureaucrats at the Bureau of Labor Statistics? Fire the woman in charge, slander her for, yes, “rigging” the numbers on employment and inflation “to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” and look to hire someone who by hook or crook actually will rig the number to try to make you look better. As if the experts everywhere who rely on quality U.S. economic data will be fooled. Or even average Americans, who don’t need BLS reports to conclude that food, housing and healthcare costs are a source of stress, as 86% of them said in an Associated Press/ NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Monday.
Mad that federal judges rejected your former defense lawyer Alina Habba and other incompetent loyalists as U.S. district attorneys, as provided by law? Devise complicated end runs to keep them in place anyway, and have your aides condemn the judges (including Republican appointees) and their “left-wing agenda.” That charge is especially rich when Habba, Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for New Jersey, makes no secret of her own right-wing agenda: Her goal, she told a right-wing podcaster, is to “turn New Jersey red.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he plans to put new district lines in front of voters in a special election on Nov. 4, but only if Texas moves forward with its redistricting plans.
Want to impose punishing tariffs on U.S. trading partners, though the Constitution empowers Congress to set import duties? Seize on a law giving presidents emergency economic powers and twist its definition of “emergency” beyond recognition or precedent. Go ahead and impose 50% tariffs on Brazil, for example, because it’s conducting a “witch hunt” (sound familiar?) against former president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. It’s not as if the subservient Republican-run Congress is going to object and reclaim its constitutional power.
But courts might step in. One federal court has ruled against Trump on the tariffs issue and an appeals court last week was hostile during arguments in the two cases before it. Ultimately, however, the question of the president’s tariff power will be up to the ever-deferential Supreme Court, which Trump and Senate Republicans really did rig in his favor during his first term.
Gov. Gavin Newsom says California would seek to redraw its congressional districts to help Democrats if Texas goes through with a similar plan to boost Republicans.
Trump even cheats on relatively small stuff (besides his golf game). An exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on presidential impeachments naturally included Trump, the only president to be impeached twice. But somehow, any mention of him was removed, leaving just Presidents Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, the last of whom resigned before he could be impeached. Presto! “Wiping away the impeachments like an ill-fated Kremlin apparatchik,” in the Atlantic’s words.
Trump’s rigging is of course most obvious, and most hypocritical, in his unabashed demand to concoct congressional maps that could all but guarantee that Republicans don’t suffer the usual midterm election losses for the party in power.
The Smithsonian’s removal of a reference to the two impeachments of President Trump comes as his administration is increasingly asserting dominion over American institutions.
He’s already messed with Texas, with its trove of Republican votes and compliant Republican leaders. There, at Trump’s command, a special session of the Republican-controlled state legislature, which was supposed to be about providing relief to victims of the July 4 Guadalupe River deluge and mitigating future flooding tragedies, has turned into a partisan power play to re-gerrymander Texas’ congressional maps so that Republicans win five additional House seats next year.
But just in case five seats aren’t enough to stave off a Democratic takeover of the U.S. House, Trump and his team are pressing for sudden redistricting in other red states, including Missouri and Ohio, as well as Indiana, where Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to visit Thursday in his side role as Trump’s deputy election-rigger. Such machinations have provoked Democrats, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, to threaten counter-gerrymanders in their blue states.
Gerrymandering is a ploy nearly as old as the nation. Yet the skulduggery traditionally has been limited to once a decade, after the decennial census that the Constitution requires so states can redraw their political maps to reflect population changes. Trump and team haven’t even bothered to sugarcoat their extraordinary mid-decade power grab: “We are entitled to five more seats,” the president ridiculously decreed on Tuesday.
The Latino electorate was critical in securing a win for Trump in 2024. Can the Republican Party count on them for control of Congress?
Trump and his political aides cooked up their scheme to rig the 2026 House elections several months ago. In June, White House aides met with Texas Republicans in Congress to urge a “ruthless” effort to get the state’s districts redrawn. According to the New York Times, the aides warned — as if Republicans need warnings by now — that the vengeful Trump would pay close attention to who helped that effort and who didn’t.
On Tuesday, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, desperate for Trump’s endorsement as he seeks reelection, tried to show some MAGA muscle by asking the FBI to help locate and arrest Democratic state legislators who fled the state so the Texas House couldn’t vote on the Republican gerrymander plan.
Trump didn’t blink at the idea of his appointees sending federal agents after elected state officials who aren’t breaking the law: “They may have to,” he said.
After all, he’s the rigger in chief.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The author contends that Trump engages in projection by falsely accusing others of rigging while simultaneously attempting to manipulate electoral and governmental processes himself. The author argues that Trump is brazenly attempting to fix the 2026 midterm elections by pressuring Republican-controlled states to redraw congressional districts mid-decade, which could prevent Democrats from gaining House control and the ability to investigate his administration.
The author asserts that Trump’s firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer represents an attempt to manipulate economic data, claiming the president slandered her for supposedly rigging employment and inflation numbers to make Republicans look bad[2]. The author suggests Trump seeks to replace her with someone who would actually manipulate statistics in his favor.
The author characterizes Trump’s use of emergency economic powers to impose tariffs as a constitutional overreach, arguing that he is twisting the definition of “emergency” beyond recognition to circumvent Congress’s constitutional authority over import duties. The author specifically cites Trump’s 50% tariffs on Brazil as retaliation for legal proceedings against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
The author claims Trump engaged in historical revisionism by having references to his impeachments removed from a Smithsonian exhibit, describing this as “wiping away the impeachments like an ill-fated Kremlin apparatchik.” Additionally, the author argues that Trump’s threats to use FBI resources to locate Democratic Texas legislators who fled to prevent voting on redistricting represents an abuse of federal law enforcement.
Different views on the topic
The Trump administration has established multiple federal task forces focused on election integrity, including the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group and specialized election accountability units, which officials frame as necessary measures to investigate voter fraud and protect electoral processes[1]. The administration argues these efforts are designed to ensure fair elections rather than target political opponents.
Trump’s March 2025 executive order on election integrity emphasizes that the United States fails to enforce basic election protections used by other developed nations, citing examples of India and Brazil using biometric databases for voter identification and countries like Germany and Canada requiring paper ballots counted publicly[3]. The administration argues that American election systems feature problematic practices like mass mail-in voting and accepting late-arriving ballots that other countries avoid.
The executive order directs the Attorney General to enter information-sharing agreements with state election officials to prosecute various election crimes, including voter registration violations, election fraud, and intimidation of voters or election officials[3]. The administration frames this as protecting citizens’ right to participate in fair elections rather than political targeting.
Trump has defended his actions regarding employment statistics by claiming that former BLS commissioner McEntarfer fabricated poor economic numbers to benefit Democratic candidates during the 2024 election, though these allegations lack supporting evidence[2]. The administration portrays the firing as necessary to ensure accurate economic reporting rather than political manipulation.
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