Trump’s New Voter I.D. Threat Is His Gravest Attack on Democracy Yet

The president says he’ll do it “whether approved by Congress or not!” He can’t legally do that—but that hasn’t stopped him before.

What did Donald Trump mean last Friday when he wrote on Truth Social that “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!”? We didn’t have to wonder for long, because exactly 27 minutes later, he explained it with a follow-up post: “If we can’t get it through Congress, there are Legal reasons why this SCAM is not permitted. I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order.”

Trump can issue an executive order changing the temperature at which ice becomes water, but that won’t make it happen. The Constitution couldn’t be clearer: Presidents don’t run elections; the states do. Congress can change the rules, and it did in 1967 when it mandated single-member districts (a couple states at the time still elected members on an at-large basis). But the president has nothing to do with any of it.

Why is Trump so worked up? The House passed the SAVE America Act, an ill-disguised attempt to codify voter suppression, last Wednesday. But as he well knows, it’s not going to get through the Senate—unless Republicans decide to kill the filibuster. Right now, that seems unlikely, and assuming that doesn’t happen, Trump and the GOP’s main vehicle for suppressing turnout this fall will die. Hence, the executive order threat. 

The problem for Trump is that no court in the country will honor his executive order. I can’t imagine even the Supreme Court will,........

© New Republic