‘Trump Has Already Rigged the 2028 Presidential Election’: US Defence Insider

Brynn Tannehill has worked for years for one of the largest US Government defence contractors in the country.

Writing pseudonymously for Byline Times, in November 2024 she predicted the astonishingly rapid militarisation of the homeland that Donald Trump would pursue; and in February 2025 she accurately forecast some of the most shocking turns of the Trump administration – including how serious it is about annexing places like Venezuela and Greenland.

Now she casts her eye on what pivotal presidential elections will hold in 2028 – and warns that Democrats are dangerously unprepared for what’s coming.

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The outcome of the election has already been determined: Democrats just don’t realise it yet.

Donald Trump’s first year in office has largely been an exercise in consolidating all power in the executive branch, and then wielding this power to punish his enemies, whether they are recalcitrant blue state governors, people who have angered him (like James Comey and Letitia James), and unpopular minorities (immigrants and transgender people), or the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. 

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The Legal Coup

So far, the Project 2025 Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute plan to codify the ‘Unitary Executive theory’ into law has been successful. Until recently, the Unitary Executive Theory was a fringe constitutional doctrine asserting the President holds sole authority over the entire executive branch, derived from Article II’s vesting of “the executive Power” in one person, meaning Congress can’t limit presidential control over executive officials or agencies. The US Supreme Court has now mostly embraced this idea, and has consistently removed Congressional oversight powers, or even the power to dictate where and how funds are spent.

The other two branches have yielded power willingly; the Republican controlled Congress has handed over the power of the purse to the executive branch, and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has nearly universally accepted Department of Justice (DOJ) arguments that the executive branch cannot be countermanded via injunctions. SCOTUS also granted near-blanket immunity to the President to commit crimes while in office, so long as they are a part of “official acts.”

The Republican Party is increasingly behaving like a party that believes it will never face a competitive election again, which I believe is exactly what is happening. The administration increasingly doubles down on unpopular policies and positions, including defending young Republican leaders who got caught admiring Hitler and looking forward to gassing and burning the bodies of their political opponents.

Trump is deep underwater in opinion polls across most of his signature issues, including tariffs, the economy, and immigration. Yet Republican leadership seems to assume they have the capability to decide Presidential elections in perpetuity, regardless of how people vote.

This doesn’t apply to the 2026 mid-terms, but they do not matter anyway: SCOTUS has largely allowed the executive branch to bypass Congress, nor will the executive branch cooperate with a democratic Congress, and all the mechanisms to enforce actions by Congress are controlled by the executive branch anyway, such as the Department of Justice. At this point, the only election that matters is for President, and the results are already being determined by the incumbent party.

When you run a step-by-step analysis of what it takes to decide who is President, it rapidly becomes obvious that a great many things must happen for the process to evade subversion. Republicans have set things up such that it is nearly impossible for everything to go the way it was intended, and instead the process of selecting a President is almost guaranteed to be successfully corrupted in favour of the Republican party.

Don’t believe me? I’ll walk you through the process, and how Republicans can, have, and will thwart the democratic process of selecting the next President in 2028.

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Prevent Democrats Who Might Win from Running

One of the biggest hurdles few are considering is that any Democratic candidate who looks like they might win an election for President will face the possibility of imprisonment or arrest. This is common in authoritarian countries, and Trump (with the implied consent of the Republican party) has already demonstrated a willingness to weaponise the DOJ and FBI against anyone who impedes his power.

So, if a Democratic candidate for President emerges who looks like they would easily carry the general election under normal circumstances, Trump or the Republican Party may well take them off the board pre-emptively.

Next, a Democrat must legitimately win the votes necessary to carry the electoral college. The Republican Party has the capability to thwart this in a myriad of ways. In 2020 they leveraged Postmaster DeJoy to try to reduce mail-in voting.

On the day of elections, they can use ICE and other federal entities to disrupt access to voting, and they can encourage supporters to call in bomb threats to polling places that produce a lot of democratic votes (like, say, those in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Madison, and Detroit). If the Democratic nominee doesn’t get the votes, the process stops here, and Republicans win.

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Control Who Counts The Votes

After that, the votes must be accurately counted. To that end, election-denying Republican conspiracy theorist Scott Leiendecker has purchased Dominion Voting Systems, giving him control of how votes are counted in 27 states. You should have zero faith that the new ownership wouldn’t mess with vote tabulation when it is already clear that this is a “power at all costs” movement.

The two possibilities are that Dominion doesn’t get caught putting their finger on the scale, and another Republican becomes President. If they do get caught, Trump is still in charge of the DOJ and loyalists, so there will be no investigations or prosecutions. If they are caught, it would be left to the DOJ and FBI to investigate, which will clearly go nowhere.

Even if allegations do rise to the level that the results of the election are cast into doubt, it will be left to the House to pick a President, where the results are again rigged in favour of Republicans via the 12^th Amendment which outlines the rules for a contingent election, and again we get a Republican. It’s a win-win for Dominion to interfere, and they’ll likely be rewarded for their service to the regime, so presume it will happen.

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State and Local Officials Refuse to Certify Results

So what happens if this all somehow fails, a Democratic candidate gets past all these efforts to rig the election, and it becomes clear that they won enough votes in the right states to carry the electoral college?

At that point, local and state Republicans will refuse to certify election results, in hopes of kicking the decision to the House of Representatives where the Republican is guaranteed to win, based on each state delegation getting one vote, and there being more Republican states than Democratic ones.

This almost happened in Michigan in 2020, and it is a near certainty there will be a concerted push by Republicans and the base to pressure state and local officials into refusing to certify the election. Indeed, Dominion’s interference might provide a genuine justification for a refusal to certify.

On top of that, the death threats and promises of prosecution by DOJ are likely to sway election board members who might otherwise be tempted to vote with their conscience.

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Challenge the Results in a Rigged SCOTUS

But, let’s assume the election doesn’t get derailed by any of these first three stumbling blocks, all of which Republicans already control. If they do not like the results, Republicans will go to the Supreme Court to overturn the election on some pretext or uphold the rigging process. The same SCOTUS which said Trump can do anything he wants.

They could also try another fake electors plot, if it even gets this far. This last one is a long shot, admittedly. But, as you can see, by this point it’s already highly unlikely a Democratic nominee even gets to this point looking like the winner.

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Overturn the Election Using Contested Election Procedures in the House

Then it gets to the House of Representatives. First and foremost: if Democrats do not control the House of Representatives there is basically zero chance that a Republican controlled House would vote to certify an election which a Democrat won.

Republicans have already been moving to ensure that Democrats cannot take control of the House of Representatives (which includes taking control over Dominion). The Supreme Court just heard a case (Louisiana v. Callais) brought by conservatives that would gut the Voting Rights Act and allow states to gerrymander Black votes in the south out of existence. Based on oral arguments, it appears that SCOTUS is ready to rule in favour of conservatives.

Current estimates are that this ruling would cost Democrats about 20 seats in the House if southern states redistrict between the ruling and the 2028 election (they will). This would require that Democrats win the popular vote by five-and-a-half to six percentage points to control the House.

If, by some miracle, Democrats overcome all the shenanigans and manage to win a landslide election, there is still the problem of seating the representatives. The jiggery-pokery of Speaker Johnson refusing to seat Representative-elect Grijalva of Arizona last year (she was belatedly sworn in after 50 days and a lawsuit) illustrates this may be an additional barrier, if Democrats fail to win in 2026.

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A Republican Vice President will Refuse to Certify the Election in the Senate

But let’s suppose that Democratic candidates for the House overcome ALL these headwinds from election day to the 6^th of January, look poised to take control of the House, and thereby certify the (contested) results.

Then they must get it past both JD Vance and a likely second January 6th mob, the military, or the legal arms of the Executive Branch (US Marshals, FBI, DOJ, etc…)

For those who have memory-holed the events of 6 January 2021, Donald Trump launched a mob at the capitol to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the election in the US Senate, as the President of the Senate.

Pence, for all his faults, listened to his lawyers and his conscience, and publicly stated he lacked the authority to overturn the election. It is almost impossible to imagine JD Vance taking the same principled stance, especially if he is the Republican nominee for president.

Thus, the odds of there being a vote to certify the election by the Vice President is also nearly zero.

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If Republicans Control the Senate they will Refuse to Certify the Election

Again, let’s suppose that Vance has a miraculous turn of heart and conscience, and pulls a Mike Pence. Trump has numerous options here: including using law enforcement beholden to him (ICE, FBI, DOJ) or military to prevent the vote. Or, he could federalise Washington DC city government, withdraw all protection from the House and Senate, and help ensure a second January 6^th insurrection succeeds.

It is difficult to imagine a scenario where Trump doesn’t use the powers he fought to consolidate to ensure that he remains outside the reach of the law in a succeeding administration. Additionally, members of the Trump administration who might not be covered by presidential immunity will be desperate to avoid prosecution by a Democratic administration for crimes committed on their watch. These individuals would put a great deal of pressure on Trump to ensure that a Democrat is not sworn in on January 20^th, 2029.

But, let’s pretend that Vance, or whichever Republican is Vice President at the time, moves forward with certifying the election. Then the Senate, almost certainly controlled by Republicans, would also have to certify.

Keep in mind, if they certify, the Republican candidate still has 14 days to destroy them and their families using the power of the executive branch, and still could cling to power via other means. Thus, the odds of Republican Senators confirming the election of a Democrat as President seem unlikely, given that they could easily end up arrested immediately afterwards.

Whether Trump uses federal assets to prevent a vote to certify a Democratic nominee win on January 6^th 2029, a mob, or some combination of both, it seems highly unlikely that such a vote would be allowed to take place by the current administration. In doing so, he would have the full-throated support of his party, much of the traditional and social media (Fox, OANN, Newsmax), and conservative think-tanks supporting their blatantly autocratic attempt.

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Republicans Can Use the Military, ICE, Base to Physically Prevent Inauguration

If somehow Democrats manage to bypass all of these hurdles: then you have to hold the inauguration and swear in the Democratic nominee. At this point, an increasingly desperate Republican apparatus would be willing to do everything within its power to prevent the seating in and official transfer of power, including using the same forces from January 6 to prevent it from happening.

Again, Trump and the Republicans have the option of using the DOJ and FBI to prevent it, along with a military that has been denuded of any leadership that isn’t 100% MAGA.

However, given all that would have to happen before this for there to be a Democratic nominee waiting to be sworn in, it seems unlikely in the extreme that we would get to this point and can only speculate what attempts to stop the inauguration would look like or the likelihood of their success.

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Almost Zero Chance a Democrat Will be Sworn in on 20 January, 2029?

Based on this analysis, I believe that regardless of how people vote, the chances of a Democrat government coming to power in 2029 is virtually nil. 

The path for a Democrat to be sworn in on 20 January 2029 is so narrow that I deem it to be nearly impossible, and so should leaders within the Democratic party. They need to be prepared for a future where we are very clearly living in a competitive autocracy, where one man rules, and elections are merely Potemkin villages meant to keep up the appearances of democracy.

When you list out all the things that must happen, and consider how likely they are, you begin to understand why the future is so bleak.

To summarise, here is what must happen:

• A Democrat who can win has to make it to election day outside of federal custody
• A Democrat must overcome attempts to suppress votes, and win the electoral college
• They must overcome potential skullduggery by Dominion to manipulate vote counts
• They must prevent local and state officials from refusing to certify the election
• They must get SCOTUS to prevent ALL attempts to overturn election results
• They may have to overcome another fake electors scheme
• They must control the House of Representatives, despite all of the election challenges above (gerrymandering, end of the VRA, Dominion, polling place intimidation, fights over mail-in voting, etc…)
• They must get the House of Representatives sworn in and seated by January 6th.
• They must get the Vice President (presumably JD Vance) to certify the election
• They will likely have to get Republican Senators to defy the administration at great personal risk to vote to certify the election
• They must avoid or prevent Trump from using law enforcement, the military, or the mob to prevent Congress from certifying the election results
• They must successfully get the Democratic nominee sworn in despite whatever efforts Trump and the GOP use to prevent it from occurring.

If any one of those things doesn’t happen, then a Republican ends up President regardless of how people voted.

Even if you charitably assume that the Trump administration only has a 50-50 chance at succeeding at each of these steps, the probability that a Democrat is president on January 21^st 2029 is less than one tenth of one percent (.0975%). Or, it’s a one-in-a-thousand chance, at best.

I don’t know which of these roadblocks will derail the Democratic nominee, but it is almost certain one of them will.

Yes, Democrats should be thinking about how to win the election. It is likely that Trump will be even more unpopular in three years, given the massive, looming tech and real estate bubbles the economy is sitting on, not to mention his disastrous tariffs and tax hikes on the poor and middle class. His heavy handed tactics and brutalisation of people who oppose him and his goons will erode his support further. It is highly probable that a Democrat would win a free and fair election in 2028.

But the election in 2028 will almost certainly not be free and fair: the Republican Party will almost certainly use all the tactics above to avoid losing their grasp on power after consolidating it all in the executive branch. To argue otherwise is to fail to understand the nature of competitive authoritarianism.

Thus, Democrats should be thinking at least as much about dealing with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as they are on how to win it. They need to have a plan for the most likely outcome in 2029, when a clearly stolen election has put another unpopular despot back on the throne, and it has become clear to most political observers that elections cannot change the direction of the US federal government. 

The party also needs to prepare for the nearly inevitable existential crisis they will face: whether to push for the dissolution of the United States into separate sovereign territories or to remain a permanent, powerless minority in a sham democracy.