[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on September 17, 2026.]
President Donald Trump is losing badly, and he knows it. At the MAGA rally billed as the Republican midterm convention on September 9-10, he mounted yet another brazen attack on the democratic process that threatens to hold him accountable. He tried to buy votes, imbue personal loyalty to him over allegiance to democracy, and encourage voter fraud.
Most of the media dismissed the episode as just another bizarre Trump moment.
A Dubious Promise
Eight minutes into his second keynote speech on Day Two of the rally, the president promised a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to every U.S. adult citizen if Republicans retained control of Congress in November. That would add more than $1 trillion dollars to the burgeoning federal deficit and fuel persistent inflation.
Some observers dismissed it as a campaign promise. But federal law provides:
“Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and
Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” (18 U.S.C. Sec. 597 – “Expenditures to Influence Voting”)
Of course, the Trump Justice Department that is prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey for posting a photograph of seashells on a beach will never investigate or prosecute Trump for anything. And Trump’s position will always be that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in Trump v. United States effectively gave him a permanent “get-out-of-jail-free” card for anything he does as president.
Even so, Trump’s promise of money in exchange for Republican votes was blatantly anti-democratic; the loyalty oath that he then asked his audience to take was worse.
A Dangerous Pledge
Ten minutes after his $5,000 promise, Trump asked attendees to raise their right hands and swear – not to defend democracy, but to undermine it as an act of personal loyalty to him:
“I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe.”
The audience repeated his words. Ignoring the evidence that voter fraud is virtually non-existent, Trump continued:
“That I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it anyway. I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. They never, there’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care. I am gonna go out and I’m gonna get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd or we are going to vote before that.
“Ready? To finish the pledge? So we swear [Audience responded: “We swear.”] on November 3rd, we are going to go out and vote.”
Then Trump added: “And you know what? If you want, you can vote Democrat, but I don’t think there’s one person in this room that’s gonna vote [Democrat]. [Audience responded: “No.”]
“I don’t think so. So I don’t have to preface, I don’t wanna waste the words vote Republican, just go out. If you vote, you’re voting Republican. Okay.”
Then he concluded the pledge: “So help me God.”
[Audience responded: “So help me God”]
“Swear Your Loyalty to Me”
It’s no secret that Trump values personal loyalty to him above all else. Competence has never been a job requirement in his administration. (See, for example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (HHS), Pete Hegseth (Defense), Kristi Noem (HHS), Tulsi Gabbard (DNI), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor), and more)
But Trump’s oath is particularly unsettling. A U.S. president asking any audience to swear personal fealty to him should trouble any citizen. When coupled with a pledge to commit voter fraud aimed at preserving that president’s compliant legislative majority for another two years, it’s stunning. And the historical parallels are frightening.
Pundits responded with their usual euphemisms: “Trump acted outside historical norms;” “Don’t take Trump literally;” “Trump is being Trump.”
Then they moved on.
“Outside historical norms”? Trump’s actions are so far beyond the pale that it’s inappropriate to describe them in such sanitized terms. He has already destroyed many of democracy’s guardrails, and he’s not done.
“Don’t take Trump literally”? Maybe pundits don’t, but even with a dismal approval rating in the mid-30s, millions of people will. After all, he concluded his September 10 pledge with a warning:
“You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell. You know that. Okay? You go to hell. And I don’t want that to happen to you, so please go and vote because together we will defeat the communists. We will defeat the communists. We will reject, and that’s what they are. They’re not socialists. They’re not Democrats. They’re communists. We will reject these radical left lunatics. We will demolish the extremists, fanatics, lunatics and criminals who want to destroy our country.”
“Trump is being Trump”? That’s true in the sense that he’s saying the quiet part out loud. But the response should be more than a collective shrug. With the help of a complicit Republican majority in Congress, a cooperative U.S. Supreme Court, and Republican controlled-state governments across the country, Trump has amassed unprecedented presidential power – and abused it in unprecedented ways.
The November election must become the reckoning that Trump does not want.
Steven J. Harper, an attorney, former partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and former adjunct professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, is the author of The Lawyer Bubble — A Profession in Crisis and Crossing Hoffa — A Teamster’s Story. His op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, Crain’s, The Hill, and other publications. He has also been a columnist for The American Lawyer. Website: https://thelawyerbubble.com. Substack: https://stevenjharper.substack.com
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