3 points How Donald Trump is dismantling US democracy

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Donald Trump is going on the offensive: The 79-year-old is preparing to undermine the American political system in its entirety with three measures. Rules? They no longer count for anything.

"Oh, that would be wonderful" - this is what Donald Trump says in conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky about the prospect of no elections being held if the country were at war.

"You like the idea," his guest remarks with a smile. Selensky himself is open to the idea of holding elections in Ukraine, if only they could be held safely.

Even "NewsMax" does not miss this unusual scene: "Trump jokes about canceling elections in times of war", headlines the right-wing channel, which seems a little uneasy about the matter.

No wonder, because the president's latest moves are enough to make those who abide by the basic rules of democracy laugh. Here are three points as proof.

The menu sounds dry, but the Republicans manage to spice up the dish. What happened? Here is a quick overview:

The latest development: 30 of the 56 Democrats who fled have now returned to Texas. The vote on the constituencies can therefore still be held before the end of the specially convened special session. The opponents want to go on the offensive and will challenge the result legally anyway.

Although the Democrats are obviously running for the hills, Greg Abbott is taking astonishing measures: He has had those affected sign a paper in which the politicians must agree to be permanently monitored until the ballot.

Until 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday, they must be accompanied by a police officer at all times. Only Nicole Collier is not going along with this: In protest, the MP has had herself locked in the parliament in Austin. She is not going along with the coercion, the 52-year-old emphasizes combatively.

And that's not all: because the Governor of California has announced that he will also redistrict the constituencies in his state, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is launching another counter-attack.

"Gavin Newsom should spend less time trampling on his state's laws for a stealth grab for power and more time trying to change the disastrous, radical left-wing policies that are destroying California," the Independent quotes Mike Johnson as saying. That will not work, it continues.

Johnson, the third most powerful man in the USA on paper, is not only ignoring the behavior in Texas. In contrast to Abbott, Newsom is also linking the redistricting to a vote in which Californians have a say.

Donald Trump has announced his intention to ban postal voting by decree. It is "corrupt" and "a scam". "The Democrats want it because they have terrible policies," said the 79-year-old at the Ukraine summit in the White House on August 18.

He then claims it would even benefit his political opponent: "If you have absentee ballots, not many Democrats get elected." The consensus is that the Republicans receive fewer postal votes.

Trump goes on to say that the postal vote is "bigger than anything to do with redistricting". "We will have no more country", the New Yorker threatens. The most important things are "borders and free and fair elections".

On his Truth Social platform, Trump also rails against postal voting, which he says is "ten times more expensive" than voting by ballot. Incidentally, Vladimir Putin reinforced his opinion, as Trump revealed to Fox News after the Alaska summit.

"He said: 'Your election was postponed because you have absentee ballots. He said, 'No country has absentee ballots.' It's impossible to have absentee voting and fair elections," Trump says, though it's unclear whether the last sentence is from Putin or a realization from Trump.

The fact that Putin of all people is talking about fair elections is quite something. Even better: Russia has postal voting. But the Kremlin leader told the US president that Trump had won the 2020 election "by a wide margin" - and that "with you" there would have been no war in Ukraine.

"You lost the election because of the postal vote," Putin told Trump. And that, of course, is music to his ears. The Russian president should be pleased to have once again thrown sand in the gears of democracy in the USA.

According to experts, postal voting is extremely secure, which is probably the reason for Putin's propaganda: However, because voting rights are a matter for the states, it remains questionable whether Trump's decrees are legally binding at all.

If the police want to search a house, they need a search warrant. If they want to lock someone up, they need an arrest warrant. Unless there is imminent danger - then these rules do not apply.

But if the police constantly see imminent danger, they break the restrictions that have actually been imposed on their work - and we would be living in a police state.

This is how Donald Trump works in a figurative sense, criticizes the "Huffington Post" and headlines: "Donald Trump hopes he doesn't have to go to court when he declares everything 'national security'".

Trump fires 500,000 civil servants? Officially justified with national security. Trump withdraws union protection from 75 percent of civil servants? Because of national security. Not to mention the wave of deportations or the National Guard deployments in Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

"If everything can be a national emergency or a threat to national security or a foreign policy issue, then basically all constitutional powers are ceded to the president," says Shirin Sinnar, a law professor at Stanford Law School. "And that can't be in the spirit of the Constitution."

This aspect will still occupy the US Supreme Court. How it responds will be groundbreaking for the separation of powers and the political system in the USA.