Alan Zendell, September 15, 2026

Sitting on my deck on a windless morning, I felt a sudden breeze, although the trees around me remained still. I didn’t know what caused it until I turned on the news. Even then, I wasn’t sure – was it the wake left by dodged bullets or a collective sigh of relief from the 250 million Americans who feared Trump would totally undermine our Constitution?

We can debate which aspect of our so-called democracy is most critical, but with the midterm elections rapidly approaching, the consensus among Americans who feared for our future was that the prize should go to voting rights. Whatever a failed or corrupt president might accomplish during their term, the final line of defense of our democracy has always lain with voters.

Much of the frustration felt by the vast majority of American voters, this year, was about the courts. The Republican controlled Senate, led by Mitch McConnell (R, KY) spent the last two decades packing federal appellate benches with Conservative judges, although that term, which once focused on fiscal conservatism, evolved into MAGA loyalty to Trump. The lower courts remained more balanced, politically, an odd observation in itself, since courts are supposed to be insulated from politics.

Two lower courts ruled that Trump’s attempts to control elections by limiting mail-in voting were likely unconstitutional and blocked his efforts to weaponize the U. S. Postal Service to assure that he maintained his majorities in Congress, and when the Justice Department, which was already weaponized by Trump to shut down dissent, sued thirty states to obtain voters records to screen them looking for non-citizens, the courts shut down twenty-three of them. The remaining seven are still pending.

Those were positive results for people who support our Constitution, but we couldn’t relax, despite the seemingly unanimous responses opposing Trump’s actions, because in the end, our fate lay in the hands of the Supreme Court, which contained a six to three majority of Justices thought to be Trump loyalists. The Court had already issued stunning decisions which left predictions in limbo.

After overturning Roe v Wade, reversing fifty years of precedent in 2022, the Court seemed poised to move ahead with a MAGA-oriented agenda, but in Trump’s second term, their decisions went in both directions. They declared Trump’s tariffs illegal but removed limits on campaign financing. They temporarily stopped his attempts to end birthright citizenship but issued mixed rulings on the president’s authority to remove officials in Executive Branch agencies and the Federal Reserve and gutted what remained of the Voting Rights Act. They issued mixed rulings in immigration cases and gerrymandering of election districts and declined to review whether the president violated the War Powers Act when he attacked Iran without Congressional approval.

Given all that, despite the vast majority of legal analysts believing that Trump’s attempts to limit mail-in voting were illegal, no one was willing to predict whether the Court would find some pretext to allow his plan to continue. Recent surveys found that a majority of Americans distrusted the Supreme Court, and only a third of us approved of its recent performance. Until they ruled, yesterday, that Trump’s mail-in voting plan could not proceed to affect the 2026 midterms, the integrity of the elections remained in jeopardy.

Today, we can be fairly confident that the midterm elections are safe from Trump’s meddling, and recent polling virtually guarantees that Trump will lose his House majority by a wide margin. His Senate majority, which seemed secure a few months ago, now also appears to be in jeopardy, and will probably be decided based on how much money Elon Musk and the Trump’s PACs pour into the defense of Republican candidates.

There is no question that Trump’s attempts to rig elections and scream foul whenever he loses one will continue unabated. The next target will be the 2028 presidential election, which will be critical to the survival of the MAGA movement with Trump no longer at the helm and his popularity fading rapidly. We’re far from out of the woods with respect to elections, but the Court regained a measure of respect this week. Except for Justices Alito and Thomas, both of whom have profited substantially from Trump’s presidency, the rest of the Court seems inclined to prevent Trump from undermining the Constitution.

The battle for the midterms is far from over, however. The Democrats have given us little reason to be confident that they can provide a unified approach to governing if they win. While it’s natural that Trump’s attempts at autocracy and oligarchic control would strengthen Progressives, many of us who oppose MAGA are also concerned by the Socialist label Progressives have adopted. We worry about the clearly anti-Semitic views of candidates like Abdul Al-Sayed, the Democrat running for one of Minnesota’s Senate seats, and the views of New York mayor Zohran Mamdami.

The last thing America needs is more divisiveness, but I’m not confident Democrats can deliver on their promise to unite the country in a positive direction. If they don’t get their act together, we could still lose the fight to protect our future from Trump.