It’s getting serious…

Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social
The Trump administration sent letters to all 58 California counties Friday, demanding that they segregate ballots from alleged noncitizens and threatening election officials with potential criminal charges if they fail to comply…

Here’s the article from Democracy Docket:

DOJ demands all California counties segregate ballots, threatening to prosecute election officials

By Zachary Roth October 24, 2026

The Trump administration sent letters to all 58 California counties Friday, demanding that they segregate ballots from alleged noncitizens and threatening election officials with potential criminal charges if they fail to comply, the New York Times reported.

The letters — the latest escalation in a sweeping and dangerous Department of Justice (DOJ) assault on California’s election system — include a “subset” list of names from the original 20,000 people from across the state that the DOJ flagged as suspected noncitizens for local election officials to review.

“This is NOT A DRILL: Donald Trump and Todd Blanche are trying to interfere in California elections,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement responding to the news.

…

The letters also ask the counties to send the administration sensitive personal information about the alleged noncitizens that would allow the federal government to determine their eligibility to vote. The requested information includes Social Security numbers and ID information.

Trump’s justice [sic] department has no constitutional authority to do this, and I’m pretty sure California is going to tell them, politely, to fuck off. But I don’t think they ever expected compliance when they sent the letter. This is Trump’s people, with the collusion of the Republican party, positioning themselves to declare after election day, if not that very day, that California’s election results are null and void and Mike Johnson can decline to seat all the democratic party representatives from California.  Because of course the republicans who won their contests did it legitimately. And Johnson will do it too. Because he’s up to his neck in on it.

Maybe they think this keeps congress in the hands of the Republicans, but I don’t think even the Robert’s court is going to go along with it…Alito and Thomas notwithstanding. But that matters less than the absolute chaos that follows. With that action, Trump and Mike Johnson will light a powder keg.

I think that’s what we need to plan on after election day. Because they’re fine with blowing everything up. The America of democracy, of government of the people, by the people, and for the people, of liberty and justice for all, was never their country. They want it gone; replaced by a white “illiberal democracy”. or what Trump and those closest to him probably want  which is the fascist dictatorship. It won’t matter which version wins.

The only saving grace of it I can see is they are so tightly wrapped in their self glorifying information cocoon that they don’t understand the rest of us At All. It’s the same exact mindset I have seen for decades during the fight for LGBT civil rights. They have this cheapshit bar stool stereotype of who the opposition is and it keeps surprising them when we don’t behave like that and we keep fighting even harder and keep winning battles they thought were done deals. They have the same mindset about liberals and democrats, just like the fascists of the second world war had about the allies, and themselves as the master race.

They think we’re weak, but we’re not weak, we’re decent. People like that are always mistaking decency for weakness.

We can eventually win this thing, but have no illusions. If enough of what’s left of the republican party doesn’t draw a line in the sand, what happens after Mike Johnson pulls the trigger is going to be ugly. Worse than anything this nation has endured.