Over the course of 2026, the US State under the Trump Administration has pursued a policy to regulate and restrict the elections process, something historically and legally left to the states to implement. This continues the policy initiated last year through various now-overturned executive orders restricting elections. These orders notably formed the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database (SAVE), which was revitalized this year. Despite significant setback in the last year, it is clear that the push to centralize, expand, and strengthen the executive branch by the Trump Administration is continuing.
Earlier this year, on March 31, the Trump Administration enacted Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections”. The order directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to create a record of US citizens and provide it to all states, as well as implement a system for the US Postal Service to manage, transport, and verify mail-in election ballots. In specific, the USPS would only accept mail-in ballots of those listed on the federal record. The USPS regulations were published on August 26, with a federal court blocking them the following day. Although contested by the Trump Administration, the Supreme Court ruled on September 14 that the federal district court’s ruling was lawful.
Nearly two weeks later, on September 25, the Supreme Court made a separate ruling that the SAVE database was lawful. DHS, which has spent the last year and a half in an open offensive of state terror, can thus proceed compiling and sharing its citizens database. This continues off the back of the 2025 Memorandum of Understanding between the DHS and the IRS, outlining how DHS could request information from tax filings. Now that SAVE is allowed to proceed and compile data across numerous government agencies with little stopping it, the traditional government separations and procedures are increasingly things of the past. DHS has been a major vehicle for the Trump Administration’s attacks on the people in the last year, and its ability to compile data as it sees fit is another step in the process of strengthening the executive branch.
It is easy to look at the various executive orders and focus solely on elections, or to simply say that “elections are under attack”. In reality, elections do not serve the overwhelming majority of people, nor have they historically. Today elections serve only the ruling class. Whether the State is led by a Republican or a Democrat the masses remain fundamentally exploited with little having changed. Additionally, both of these parties increasingly represent either those who want a Christian/White Nationalist US or those who want a “New Deal” US. Both groups push for the further immiseration of the working class and oppressed masses in different ways.
Taken together, the overall trend of the last one and a half years is very clear: the executive branch is made stronger piece by piece, and internal separations of government powers are weakened or done away with. In the case of DHS and the IRS, a senior DHS official was quoted in 2025 saying “the government is finally doing what it should have all along: sharing information across the federal government to solve problems.” The targeting of immigrants is the major thrust of the ruling class in its effort to ensure that migrants remain in ultra-exploited conditions, as well as preserving the alliance between the ruling class and its allied sections among the petty bourgeoisie and the labor aristocracy.
Within the process of fascistization in the US, there are many factions and players contending with one another among the ruling class. Historical precedent also provides limitations on the most nakedly reactionary elements to act as they see fit. As a result, we can see over the last several years many steps and missteps towards executive expansion, where many attempts have simply been overturned by courts. Nevertheless, it is important to notice the overall trend and the persistence of the ruling class as a whole in pushing towards naked reaction. It is an urgent necessity to combat rising fascism. We must reject the illusory promises of the electoral system and the opportunists who promote it, and firmly dedicate ourselves to building political power for the masses.
