Episode
The Last Election - Read by Eunice Wong
- Published
- Feb 11, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 825
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Summary
This article is read by Eunice Wong. You can find her work at www.eunicewong.actor . Text originally published January 19, 2026 . The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Full Text: Donald Trump’s threat to cancel the midterm elections is not a feign. He attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and said he would not accept the outcome of the 2024 election if he lost. He ruminates about defying the Constitution to serve a third term. He is determined to retain absolute control — buttressed by an obsequious Republican majority — in Congress. He fears , if he loses control of Congress, impeachment . He fears impediments to the rapid reconfiguration of America as an authoritarian state. He fears losing the monuments he is building to himself — his name emblazoned on federal buildings, including the Kennedy Center, his scrapping of free entry to National Parks on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and replacing it with his own birthday, his seizure of Greenland and who knows, maybe Canada , his ability to put cities, such as Minneapolis, under siege and snatch legal residents off the streets. Dictators love elections as long as they are fixed. The dictatorships I covered in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans staged highly choreographed election spectacles. These spectacles were a cynical prop whose outcome was preordained. They were used to legitimize iron control over a captive population, mask the enrichment of the dictator, his family and his inner circle, criminalize all dissent and ban opposition political parties in the name of “the will of the people.” When Saddam Hussein held a presidential referendum in Oct. 1995, the only question on…