Although there are reasons to be skeptical that Donald Trump will run for president in 2024, one thing could push him into it: Mounting legal troubles. With his potential crimes related to the insurrection becoming clearer, he is reportedly growing more serious about running, reasoning that as a candidate, he’ll be harder to prosecute. As it happens, this is unfolding even as the Supreme Court has announced plans to hear a case next term that could upend democracy. The court will likely validate in some form the “independent state legislature” theory, which could expand the power of state legislatures over elections in radically anti-democratic ways. That has generated much discussion of how the theory could enable hyperpartisan gerrymandering. But it could also enable more election subversion, which could dovetail with the looming Trump threat in combustible ways. Even if Trump doesn’t run, the tendencies he’s unleashed — Republicans are running for positions of control over election machinery while essentially vowing to treat future elections as subject to nullification — could be made more dangerous by the court’s ruling.
Opinion: The 2024 Election Will Be Fair. People Still Won’t Believe It. | Richard L. Hasen/Politico
Last election, I warned of an “election meltdown” and a country that was not prepared for a litany of ills — foreign interference, spikes in misinformation, attempts at election subversion and more. This time around, however, I have a different outlook: Those threats are still there but this time we are aware and we are better prepared. What we should be more worried about is that losers won’t accept the results as legitimate, a sentiment that exploded only after election day in 2020, when Trump’s refusal of an orderly transition of power led to a violent assault on the Capitol. In 2024, however, election denialism is at the forefront, before most voters have even cast their ballots. This supercharged distrust could lead to further violence and instability and help cement the kind of corrosive election denialism that does lasting damage to our democracy. Read Article