Creating Budapest on the Potomac

Democrats are desperately hoping to win a majority in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections next year.

They see the midterms as their last opportunity to prevent President Donald Trump from establishing strongman rule and wreaking further damage on the United States with his reactionary policies.

We will have elections next year, no doubt. But will they be free and fair? Bright red lights are flashing. Trump has mapped out a plan to tilt the playing field against Democrats so heavily that he can create a permanent one-party state. He is following the playbook developed by another authoritarian, President Viktor Orban of Hungary.

U.S. democracy under siege

The United States has already become a “competitive autocracy,” rather than a full-fledged democracy, as Trump follows Orban’s blueprint.

In a competitive autocracy such as Orban’s, elections take place, but the deck is so stacked against the opposition that it is very difficult — if not impossible — to beat the ruling party.

Stealing congressional seats in Texas

Gerrymandering is rampant in the United States, and both parties engage in it, but Texans are masters of this dark art. Republicans already hold two-thirds of the state’s congressional seats, even though about 47% of voters are Democrats, according to the Independent Voter Project.

At the President’s request, Governor Greg Abbott convened a special session of the Texas legislature, which redrew the state’s electoral maps this week.

The timing is highly unusual. States customarily review their voting maps every ten years, after they receive the results of the latest census. Normally the Texas legislature would have redrawn the maps in 2031, six years from now.

Trump and the Republicans are rejiggering Texas electoral districts to preserve their razor-thin, seven-seat majority in the House of Representatives next year. They expect to pick up another five congressional seats through these new, unfair maps, which disadvantage Democratic candidates.

They are keenly aware that the party in power usually loses seats in midterm elections. This is not politics as usual — their maneuver is profoundly anti-democratic.

Suppressing voters

Trump issued an executive order that requires voters to prove that they are citizens. A federal judge has temporarily blocked that order, and the government has appealed his ruling. Unfortunately, the current Supreme Court has generally not protected voting rights, so it might uphold Trump’s executive order.

In April, Republicans in Congress have passed the SAVE Act, which would impose this requirement on voters. The rationale for the bill and the executive order is to prevent non-citizens from voting. But there is no significant voting fraud in the United States.

Federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting, and states require new voters to attest that they are citizens. There have been only a few reports of non-citizens voting, and these look like innocent misunderstandings — not deliberate attempts to break the law.

There is no reason to impose a citizenship requirement, and the consequences could be dire. Analysts have estimated that up to 21 million Americans could lose their right to vote.

Many poor Americans and persons of color do not have identity documents such as a driver’s license — let alone a passport or a birth certificate. Furthermore, many women change their names when they marry. They would have to produce a birth certificate and a marriage license, or a passport, to vote.

Stifling the free press

Unlike Vladimir Putin, Orban does not kill or jail journalists. His methods are more subtle. Orban has used financial pressure to eliminate most of the independent press and media in Hungary. He has cut off advertising revenues, which the Hungarian government mostly controls, or launched bogus tax audits.

With their finances squeezed, independent outlets sold out to Orban’s cronies, who converted the companies into propaganda organs for the state.

Similarly, Trump has the threat of adverse decisions by the FCC and other government agencies, and frivolous lawsuits, to intimidate media companies. The owners of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have censured their opinion writers, because they want to protect their other businesses that deal with federal agencies.

Amazon also paid Melania Trump $40 million for the rights to a documentary based on her life. That is a ridiculous amount in the low-budget world of documentaries.

Bribing Trump

ABC and CBS have effectively paid bribes to Trump, forking over millions of dollars to settle lawsuits that had no merit.

CBS is reining in the staff of “60 Minutes,” its flagship news program, which has always been dedicated to investigative reporting. The network also announced that it would cancel Stephen Colbert’s late-night show in May 2026.

Although the program was reportedly losing money, the timing of the announcement was highly suspect. Colbert had recently criticized CBS for settling Trump’s lawsuit, calling it a bribe. He has constantly made fun of a President who cannot take jokes at his own expense.

Defunding NPR and PBS

First, Trump issued an executive order to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the umbrella entity that provides funding for NPR and PBS. However, that was illegal, and it became tied up in court challenges.

Republicans then passed a law, on a tiny margin, that rescinded the $1.1 billion that Congress had previously allocated to CPB. CPB announced that it would shut down, terminating most of its employees in September.

Conservatives have wanted to destroy NPR and PBS for a long time, claiming that public broadcasters have a liberal bias that distorts their reporting. They also talk about “wasting” taxpayer dollars, but $1.1 billion is a rounding error in a $6 trillion federal budget.

Some NPR journalists may be Democrats, but their reports are accurate and usually objective. They irritate politicians on the right because they highlight issues that conservatives would rather ignore. They also fact-check the falsehoods used by Trump and other Republicans to justify their policies.

A critical service for rural America

In most of rural America, NPR radio stations provide critical functions, covering local news and issuing emergency weather alerts. They are often the only source of objective reporting on local and national issues — that is why many Republican politicians want to shut them down.

Traditional newspapers have closed. The radio waves are dominated by evangelical Christian stations and right-wing MAGA talk shows, which, unfortunately, now overlap a great deal.

Many rural stations have depended on CPB for almost half of their funding, so they will either shut down or drastically curtail their operations. They may no longer be able to subscribe to national programs such as “All Things Considered,” for example. Stations in cities will also suffer, of course, but rural stations will take the biggest hit.

What is left?

What is left of the free press? Some publications remain independent and report objectively on current events:

· The New York Times

· The Wall Street Journal (news section)

· The Washington Post (news section…so far)

· The New Yorker

· The Atlantic

These publications provide in-depth, accurate reporting on political issues. However, they are elite publications that reach a relatively small group of readers, compared to the millions of voters who listen to podcasts or watch television.