The speaker who could silence American democracy
If Trump tries — once more — to interfere in an election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power, the Republic may rest on the shoulders of one man.
If American democracy unravels after the midterm elections, the decisive figure may not be the president. It may be the Speaker of the House. That’s not a dramatic claim. It’s a growing procedural possibility, which is why more folks need to be paying attention.
I’ve served in Washington through nearly a dozen transfers of power, including changes in control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Elections are always hard fought and sometimes bitter. But the outcome itself was never treated as negotiable during any of these power transfers. When one side lost, it conceded, then control switched hands, and the machinery of government kept moving.
That changed in 2020.
The United States came closer to a constitutional rupture than at almost any point in its history. As we all recall, a sitting president refused to accept defeat, pushed baseless claims of fraud, and pressured officials to overturn a lawful result. The system held… but barely. And the same actors who tried to bend it past the breaking point are back in positions of influence and more powerful than ever.
What makes the coming midterms so perilous is that the wrong lessons were learned in 2020. The conspirators weren’t jailed. They were re-elected.
This week, Eric Levitz, in a compelling piece in Vox, laid out how the “nightmare scenario” that once seemed unthinkable now feels plausible if not likely: a narrow set of House races decided by late-counted ballots, preemptive allegations of fraud, and partisan actors primed to treat the uncertainty as evidence of wrongdoing in order to prevent the transfer of power to the other party.
Last time, Donald Trump and his allies relied on last-minute chaos to stop the vote counts and legal theories so ridiculous they collapsed in court. This time, the groundwork is being laid well in advance. Suspicion is being seeded early, from the manner in which mail-in ballots have been handled for decades to the security of the voting machines themselves. Routine election procedures are being recast as suspect. The goal here is not necessarily to “prove” fraud if the MAGA side loses, but to create a climate in which the uncertainty about the outcome can be leveraged.
The scenario sketched by Levitz is indeed very realistic. It goes like this: A handful of House races are razor thin and could determine who controls the chamber. Early in-person tallies on election night favor Republicans; later-counted mail ballots narrow or erase those leads. Because of this, allies of Trump declare fraud before the counting is even complete. Lawsuits are filed. Then the President declares the election tainted while votes are still being tabulated.
That’s when it could get really dark. Levitz’s forecast goes like this:
“When states refuse to comply, the White House orders the military to seize ballots and voting machines from pivotal precincts before all votes have been tallied. The chain of custody over these ballots breaks down, making the elections’ true winners impossible to determine. The House’s incumbent GOP majority then asserts the authority to seat the Republican candidates in the contested races.”
Under the laws of the United States, the House of Representatives is the final judge of the elections and qualifications of its own members. In a narrowly divided chamber, even a few disputed races could determine which party controls the chamber — and with it, the investigative machinery of Congress, the power of the purse, and the ability to shield or expose executive wrongdoing. Trump may not know diddly squat about the Constitution, but he knows this part very well.
In that fragile environment, one constitutional authority matters more than almost anyone realizes: the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.
The Speaker’s procedural powers would be a crucial factor in such a moment of electoral dispute. He decides what comes to the House floor, which committees are empowered, and which disagreements are elevated into formal congressional action. By calling for an urgent caucus meeting here and a delayed seating or swearing-in there, he could theoretically kick up a cloud of “ongoing review” that stretches just long enough to affect control of the chamber. Step by step, all that uncertainty can be transformed into leverage.
Specifically, he could allow committees to launch investigations that could give forum to the President’s fraud claims without proving any of them — but which GOP Members would use as cover to stand by the decision not to seat elected Democrats until they know the “truth.” Speaker Johnson could effectively permit the House to become a stage for buying time to allow Trump’s National Guard and FBI to uncover more “evidence” that feeds further doubt. Along the way, each step to stall (and ultimately stop) the power transfer would be framed as institutional caution and constitutional duty.
For anyone depending on Johnson to stridently oppose such a criminal scheme, I’d warn you that his track record on the topic of this sort of gamesmanship isn’t great. In late 2025, he faced intense scrutiny for delaying the swearing-in of Democratic Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election to represent Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, to preserve the GOP’s vote margins in the House. After a seven-week delay, Johnson officially swore her in on November 12, 2025, but experts fear he could pull the same stunt on a wider scale if the midterms don’t go the way Republicans want.
Suffice to say, if such a debacle happens after the midterms — a soft coup bubble-wrapped in faux procedural prudence — then America as we know it will be on life support. Unlike the 2020 election, the actual hindrance of the transfer of power would do damage that may never be reparable. And Johnson’s complicity would undoubtedly become his legacy: the Speaker who silenced democracy.
Yet there is another path, one that doesn’t depend on Mike Johnson showing any sort of uncharacteristic bravery. If Republicans lose and Trump tries to steal another election, Johnson should lean on another type of “standard operating procedure” to hold off the bully who will be lurking outside his door, demanding he “do something.” If Johnson plays the role of boring bureaucrat, he could prevent the demise of our Republic.
The Speaker could say in advance, for instance, that the House plans to seat members the way it always does, based on state-certified results; that ballot counting will not be regarded as evidence of fraud but a routine feature of all elections, and Democrats and Republicans will patiently await the results; and that lawful challenges are legitimate but must be grounded in evidence tested in court, not allegations amplified on television, and the House will respect the courts. That’s it.
All of this would be routine enough for the Speaker to say; he is, after all, a constitutional lawyer.
If made now, these commitments would not be outrageous or provocative. They would not trend online. But they could alter the incentives of everyone else in the system — namely the candidates, activists, media figures, and members of Congress tempted to escalate chaos for partisan advantage. Mike Johnson could signal that Congress intends to stick to its snoozy, bureaucratic functions before and after the elections and has no plans to upend centuries of precedent.
For this, I can’t promise him he’d be a hero. History rarely rewards the person who prevents a crisis that never happens. But it always remembers the person who enabled one. I doubt Speaker Johnson studied constitutional law with a desire to be remembered as the man who broke it for good.
That’s not to say drawing a line now won’t relieve him from pressure later. If the GOP loses, Trump will assuredly demand the House go along with his election meddling scheme. This is the same guy who sent a mob to the Capitol which threatened to kill his own Vice President. But Johnson will find it easier to stick to institutional principles if he’s delineated them in advance and gotten Members on his side. Moreover, in the worst case, he would probably have the votes (including from Democrats and retiring Republicans) to withstand Trump’s call for the Speaker’s ouster and replacement with someone willing to do the dirty work.
Donald Trump may rage, federal agencies may be weaponized, and candidates may file their QAnon lawsuits across the country. But the person holding the gavel will quietly decide whether the U.S. House becomes a firewall for democracy… or the place where its erosion is given official form and solemn sanction.
That decision has not yet been made. So my personal appeal to Speaker Mike Johnson is this: make it now.
Your friend, in defiance,
Miles Taylor
To depend on Johnson to do the "right thing" is madness. He is a spineless Trump sycophant and a religious fruitcake. States under threat should protect the ballots with the deployment of the National Guard.
I truly don’t believe that Mike Johnson has the courage and patriotism that Mike Pence ultimately found. I want to agree with you on this Miles, but I have to reserve judgment. But I admire your commitment and hope.