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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.
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.
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.
Trump’s Greenland Delusion Runs Aground in Davos
For all his attempted bullying, taunts and threats, Trump’s delusional Davos speech revealed a man who is far weaker than he appears, argues Alexandra Hall Hall
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.
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.
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 12th 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.
It’s Time for an Apology From the Trump Apologists
The politicians and commentators who mocked those warning about the threat posed by the US President as being “hysterical” need to face up to their own role in the calamity now unfolding, argues Adam Bienkov
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.
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.
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 lands