Last January, speaking of the 2026 midterms, the fascist warmonger and demented bully president, Donald Trump, said in an interview that he had already "accomplished so much" as president that “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.”

This was not an off-handed remark, but a declaration of intent that the Trump/MAGA fascist regime is moving to rig, steal, or even cancel the next election. Over the last several months, we have been covering how they—along with the fascist majority on the Supreme Court—are moving actively and all-sidedly towards this goal. Trump doesn't have total freedom in this, and there are sharp divides among all sections of the rulers—including among the fascists themselves. The situation is volatile and, to quote the punk band The Clash, "the future is unwritten." Revolutionaries, and all those who want to see a better world, should be grappling together over various scenarios that might emerge through this. They should grapple as well with the underlying contradictions that are driving all this, and what should be done to act in the interests of humanity—both in those potential future scenarios, and right now, to influence things in the direction of defeating Trump/MAGA fascism, and getting rid of the system that's given rise to this fascism. 

This campaign of Trump's took a huge leap this past week. 

Trump's New 1.8 billion dollar “Anti-Weaponization” Slush Fund 

On Monday, May 18, the Trump regime announced a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate Trump supporters who consider themselves victims of the “weaponization” of Biden's Justice Department. This “anti-weaponization” fund was created through a crazy scheme: first, Trump and family sued the IRS for leaking his 2019 tax returns. (It is standard practice for presidents and presidential candidates to release their tax returns, but Trump has refused to do this.) The person who was charged with this leak is now spending 5 years in jail. And thousands of other tax returns from the country's wealthiest people were also leaked. But Trump claimed that he was singled out and sued the IRS (which he oversees!). The Department of Justice has now agreed to settle the suit in return for creating this bogus fund, worth $1.776 billion. According to the terms of this, Trump (through his former personal attorney, now the acting Attorney General) is allowed to personally appoint who should be on the board overseeing these funds, and he can fire them at will. 

It was soon revealed that those eligible for massive payouts include the mob of insurrectionists that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021! Trump already pardoned these insurrectionists, or commuted their prison sentences to time served, letting them all free. This includes the main leaders of the Nazi stormtroopers—the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. The Justice Department has since moved to fully vacate the convictions of those militia leaders. Now the Trump fascist regime intends to pay these criminals for being "unfairly" prosecuted. The former leader of the Proud Boys had been sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy. Already pardoned by Trump, he now wants $5 million in "compensation." 

Two D.C. cops who were there on January 6, fending off rioters at the Capitol, and have since spoken out against Trump fascism, have filed suit to block the DOJ from making these payouts. One of them described what Trump is doing this way: “Donald Trump is putting a retainer on a mob, on a militia that’s already showed the violence that they’re willing to enact on his behalf. And he’s incentivizing it, too.” 

While Trump's most openly fascist supporters applauded the creation of this fund, some senators who have gone along with Trump are—for now—balking at the fund. Many correctly called it a "slush fund," which refers to money set aside as a way to finance and hide illegal or improper activities. The fund is not official, and Congress can still refuse to allot the funds for this. While that would be a significant defeat for Trump, the message of support to the fascist insurrectionists has already been sent: "stand back and stand by."¹

Trump Dominates the Primary Elections

In at least four states, Trump has successfully driven Republicans from office for standing up against him in some form or other. Trump basically backed super-fascist candidates against Republicans who weren't fully going along with Trump's demands, even if they were otherwise very willing fascists. This included Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial; Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who has gone on a tear to release the names in the Epstein files; and former Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s bid for governor (Raffensperger refused to go along with Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election). And Trump defeated 5 Republican state senators in Indiana because they opposed his push for mid-decade redistricting. 

In election after election, with very few exceptions, Trump's candidate won.

This week, Trump endorsed Ken Paxton to run against a long-time and powerful Republican senator, John Cornyn. Cornyn was expected to win before Trump's endorsement of Paxton. Paxton is an extreme fascist—a conspiracy theorist, an extreme misogynist, a lunatic election denier, and most of all a worshiper of Trump.

This sent a very clear message: fall in line, or Trump will make sure you are ousted. More important, it shows that—while there are sharpening splits and divides among the rulers, including to a degree among the fascists—the hard-core fascist social base is hardening.

Why the Democrats are Downplaying the Danger

While there is some attention to this dangerous reality by leaders in the Democratic Party and their mouthpieces in the mainstream/liberal media and social media, it is in the main being way too underplayed. Instead, what you hear over and over are the polls showing Trump’s declining popularity among a broader population and the big hopes for a Democratic “wave’ in November.

But there are two big problems with this:

First, this completely ignores what we spoke to above. Even if there may be some truth reflected in the polls that the breadth of Trump's support has declined, what the recent primary elections shows is that Trump's hard core social base is hardening. There are millions of American fascists who love Trump's shit—the more racist, revenge-filled, the more trample-on-people’s-legal-rights, the more unhinged and irrational, the better. While Trump's overall approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, Trump's approval rating with Republicans is 85 percent. These Ku Klucking fascists are locked and loaded.

Second, while Trump prefers to be celebrated, he doesn't really give a fuck about "public opinion." And he especially doesn't care about it from all those who he doesn't even consider human: Black and Latino people, women, LGBT people... and anyone who stands against oppression. (Remember his message to the No Kings protest on October 18, 2025 where he posted an AI video of himself dropping tons of shit on protesters while gleefully wearing a crown.)

The Trump regime is urgently working to lock in a full-on fascist program to "reclaim" the U.S. as an openly white supremacist, patriarchal, theocratic, and ethnically-cleansed of immigrants country that is running roughshod over the world. And they are willing to use violence and terror to enforce this.

So why are the Democrats so consistently underplaying this? It gets to the underlying nature of the Democrats—a nature that people need to much more fully, and scientifically, confront.

In speaking to the fact that "Democratic Party politicians may contribute to the crucial struggle against Trump/MAGA fascism—but the Democratic Party will not, and cannot, lead this struggle where it needs to go," the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian said in social media message REVOLUTION # 119: 

...the basic orientation of the Democratic Party overall is to “funnel” and reduce the struggle against Trump and the fascist Republicans within the narrow confines of electoral politics. Especially with the peculiar way electoral politics works in this country—so that a small number of voters in a small number of states has a deciding role in presidential elections—the dominant forces in the Democratic Party are determined to appeal to so-called “moderate swing voters” and to try to win over some “Trump voters.” (This involves ignoring and betraying the values and inclinations of much of the “base” of the Democratic Party, combined with the approach of blackmailing them into supporting the Democrats anyway, on the basis that the fascist Republican Party is still worse.) Along with the cynical opportunism of this approach, the “mid-term” elections will not happen until late 2026 (and no presidential election is scheduled until late 2028), and anyway there is not any reason to believe that the Trump/MAGA fascists will just accept the results of crucial elections whose outcome they do not like.

There is this even more fundamental fact: Eliminating the underlying causes of this fascism is impossible within the confines of this system, and the Democratic Party’s highest priority is maintaining and enforcing this system. The heads of the Democratic Party will always seek to keep the struggle against this fascist regime within terms and limits that do not threaten the stability of this system.

The Future Is Unwritten 

As we said at the top, what happens in these next weeks and months is uncertain, and we face extreme danger. BUT if there is a force oriented and organized to act on all this, in the interests of humanity, there is a chance to move millions to defeat Trump/MAGA fascism... and potentially to make great strides in the struggle to prepare the ground for revolution to get rid of the whole system that's given rise to this fascism.

Revcoms—and all those who want to see a better world—should be talking with each other, and people throughout society. Grapple with this situation, learn how people are seeing all this, and thinking about what we should be doing. 

There are a number of voices—mainstream journalists and those from within the ruling institutions who don't want to see fascism consolidate—who are sounding the alarm about Trump's threat to the elections. You can see some of this spoken to in a recent NY Times op-ed by Thomas Edsall, ‘When You Think of It, We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election.’ ² 

In Bob Avakian's important works, SOMETHING TERRIBLE, OR SOMETHING TRULY EMANCIPATING: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed, A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution and HUMANITY ON THE BRINK: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness?, he speaks to the moment we're approaching, in addition to providing a scientific grounding in the fundamental problem we face in this system of capitalism-imperialism, the solution in an actual revolution to bring about a radically different and far better world, and the scientific method needed to work toward that revolution to emancipate humanity in this complex and changing world. 

With so much hanging in the balance, we'll end with this from the Declaration from the revcoms, WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM,

With the urgency the situation requires 

WE DECLARE AND DEMAND: 

The Existing Capitalist-Imperialist System And Institutions Of Government In This Country Must Be Abolished And Dismantled—And Replaced By A New, Socialist System Based On The CONSTITUTION FOR THE NEW SOCIALIST REPUBLIC IN NORTH AMERICA.

So long as we are still living under the rule of this system of capitalism-imperialism, we will defend people against attacks on their lives and on the rights that are supposed to be guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. But we need a whole different system, with a whole different Constitution—the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—which will provide much greater rights for the people, including the basic right to have the fundamentally determining role in a new society and government whose purpose and goal is to eliminate all exploitation and oppression, everywhere.