On Monday, President Donald Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize” elections and “take over the voting” in at least 15 states. Trump has repeatedly called for the federal seizure of elections in states he is projected to lose, while simultaneously directing federal law enforcement to seize voting infrastructure.

Trump’s actions over the past 48 hours are a continuation of the coup attempt that began on January 6, 2021, now being carried out through the powers of the federal government itself.

In a Monday appearance on “The Dan Bongino Show,” Trump demanded that Republicans “nationalize” elections and “take over the voting” in at least 15 states, explicitly asserting that the federal government should override state election authorities.

Grounding his justification for seizing voting rolls and equipment in the fascistic “Great Replacement Theory” Trump, after another racist tirade against Somalis living in Minnesota and immigrants in general, said, “So they’ve sent all of their people, millions and millions of people. We have to get them out. And by the way, if Republicans don’t get them out, you will never win another election as a Republican.”

Trump then called on Republicans to say, “‘We wanna take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.’ The Republicans aught to nationalize the voting. And then we have states that are so crooked and they’re counting votes.”

The United States Constitution assigns primary authority to the states to run elections, with each state’s legislature determining “the Times, Places and Manner” in which elections are conducted. Congress can enact federal laws that set some standards states must adhere to while administering elections, but the Executive Branch has no constitutional authority to administer or “run” elections.

Repeating the same lies that animated the January 6 insurrection Trump claimed, “We have states that I won that show I didn’t win. Now you’re gonna see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order and the ballots, you’re gonna see some interesting things come out.”

Trump expanded on these remarks on Tuesday when questioned by Kaitlan Collins of CNN, who asked him to clarify what he meant by “nationalizing” elections and which states he was referring to.

“I want to see elections be honest and if a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it,” Trump replied.

“Because you know if you think about it a state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”

Trump continued, “When you see crooked elections and we have plenty of them … the federal government should get involved.”

“These are agents of the federal government to count the votes,” he said. “If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Trump specifically named Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta as examples of what he called “tremendous, horrible corruption on elections,” singling out heavily working class, predominantly black urban centers that vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

In other words, Trump is asserting the right to seize elections whenever the president or his allies declare the results suspect.

On Monday, the same day Donald Trump first called on Republicans to back him in “taking over” elections, the New York Times confirmed that Trump has personally intervened in an active FBI investigation in Georgia. The paper reported that Trump spoke directly to frontline agents through Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as voting equipment was seized in Fulton County.

The Times reported that Gabbard “appeared on site at the search” and “used her cellphone” to call Trump. The president then “addressed the agents on speakerphone, asking them questions as well as praising and thanking them for their work on the inquiry,” according to three people familiar with the call.

The paper further reported, citing a U.S. official, that Trump “personally ordered Ms. Gabbard to go to Atlanta for the search, and coordinated her actions with Andrew Bailey, one of two deputy FBI directors.”

The significance of Trump’s direct intervention cannot be overstated. By placing himself in direct contact with frontline FBI agents conducting an election-related investigation, Trump is reviving the same criminal logic he employed on January 2, 2021, when he personally pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Then, as now, Trump was not seeking evidence of wrongdoing but demanding that state officials and law enforcement manufacture a result that would negate an election he had lost by more than 11,000 votes. The presence of the director of national intelligence at the scene and Trump’s direct communication with investigators demonstrate that this effort has now been escalated from political coercion to the active use of the federal security apparatus to override democratic outcomes.

The events in Georgia follow similar coercive tactics in Minnesota where Attorney General Pam Bondi sent an extraordinary letter to Governor Tim Walz last month demanding that Minnesota turn over voter rolls and SNAP (food stamp) data to the federal government in exchange for a reduction in the number of immigration agents occupying the state. The demand exposed the fraudulent claim that the federal occupation, which has already resulted in the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, was aimed at targeting the “worst of the worst,” revealing instead that it was being used as leverage to coerce political compliance.

Trump has spent the first year of his second presidency federalizing National Guard elements and deploying them to major cities alongside his so-called “mass deportation operation,” in which thousands of masked federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have assaulted, murdered and kidnapped workers and residents with impunity. These and other federal police forces, can be positioned to intimidate voters, suppress turnout in targeted urban and working class areas, and seize ballots and voting rolls following an election.

Trump’s turn toward dictatorship is driven not only by his collapsing political support, but more fundamentally by the deepening crisis of the capitalist system itself. The United States is no longer the unchallenged global superpower it once was and now carries more than $40 trillion in debt, the product of decades of war, speculation, and financial parasitism. To impose austerity on the working class required to defend fictitious Wall Street valuations and sustain the wealth of a tiny financial oligarchy, the ruling class can no longer govern through democratic forms. The dismantling of elections, the expansion of the local and federal police forces and the military, and the concentration of power in the executive are not personal aberrations of Trump, but the means by which American capitalism is seeking to resolve its historic breakdown at the expense of the working class.

On the other end of the pole, millions of workers and students have taken to the streets across the country against the immigration Gestapo, police violence and state repression. Tens of thousands of healthcare workers in New York City and California are on strike, while thousands of oil workers and teachers are preparing to join them. Calls for a general strike to abolish the immigration police and drive Trump from the White House are growing, particularly in Minneapolis and other cities facing the brunt of the federal occupation.

The principal obstacle to a massive social explosion that would sweep Trump from power and reallocate billions towards healthcare, education and housing is not the strength of the administration, but the intervention of the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucracy. Even as Trump accelerates his drive toward dictatorship, the Democrats are ensuring that his repressive apparatus remains fully funded and operational.

On the very day Trump reiterated his call to federalize elections, 21 Democrats in the House voted for a spending package that guarantees continued funding for ICE, CBP, and the broader Department of Homeland Security, along with expanded military appropriations as the administration threatens renewed war against Iran. Their actions underscore that the Democratic Party is not opposed to fascism, but a partner in preserving the capitalist state and its repressive forces.

The trade union apparatus has played a similarly reactionary role. Union leaders have worked systematically to block the development of a general strike and to isolate mass protests from one another. The unions refused to support either of the massive demonstrations in Minneapolis on January 23 and January 30. The United Auto Workers bureaucracy, led by Shawn Fain, has floated vague promises of a possible strike in 2028, a cynical maneuver designed to divert anger into harmless channels, while International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O’Brien openly promotes attacks on immigrants. The Service Employees International Union has refused to mobilize its membership even as its members are beaten, detained, and left injured in the streets by federal agents, including in Salem, Oregon, where a worker and grandmother named Maria was assaulted by DHS forces last week.

The crisis now confronting the United States cannot be resolved through elections that are being openly rigged, seized, or prepared under conditions of repression and martial law. Trump’s drive toward dictatorship is not an aberration but the product of a capitalist system in terminal breakdown, incapable of reconciling social inequality, imperialist war, and mass opposition through democratic forms. The decisive question is not the outcome of fraudulent electoral processes, but the development of an independent political movement of the working class. The growing strikes, mass protests and calls for a general strike point to the only viable path forward. Preparations must be consciously organized to unite workers across industries, regions, and national lines in a general strike aimed at abolishing the immigration police, breaking the power of the financial oligarchy, and overturning the capitalist system that is driving society toward dictatorship and war.