A MAGA Fever Dream Made Law: Trump’s Executive Order Is the Beginning of the End for American Democracy
By Lisa Hayes for Confluence Daily
Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
On March 25, 2025, Donald J. Trump signed what may become the most chilling executive order in modern American history.
Let’s not soften the edges or play word games here:
This is not about election integrity.
This is not about border security.
This is not about “making elections safer.”
This is voter suppression, codified.
This is fascism creeping through the back door, wearing a flag as camouflage.
This is a MAGA fever dream written into law.
The order mandates that anyone registering to vote in a federal election must provide documentary proof of citizenship—a passport, a birth certificate, a naturalization certificate. It also requires that all mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day, not postmarked by that day as many states currently allow. Failure to comply? States lose federal election funding.
If that sounds unconstitutional, authoritarian, and wildly dangerous to the survival of a multiracial, multiethnic democracy—that’s because it is.
But more than that, it is strategic. Calculated. Cold-blooded. And unless something stops it, millions of eligible voters will be disenfranchised by design in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 general election.
Because that’s the plan.
A Voter Suppression Blueprint Dressed Up in Bureaucratic Language
Trump’s executive order is a perfect example of what Hannah Arendt warned us about: evil that wears a suit, follows procedure, and pretends to be logical.
You might miss the malice if you only read the headlines. Proof of citizenship? Sounds harmless, even reasonable, until you realize that millions of eligible voters do not possess a passport or birth certificate—especially among low-income citizens, Native Americans, the elderly, and naturalized immigrants.
This isn’t a glitch.
It’s the goal.
The United States has never required proof of citizenship to register to vote because we already have systems in place to ensure voter eligibility. States verify identity through driver’s licenses, Social Security records, and other public databases. Numerous studies—including one from the Brennan Center for Justice—have found zero evidence of widespread non-citizen voting.
Trump’s administration knows that. They also know that in 2017, when he launched the now-defunct “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity,” the commission quietly disbanded after failing to find evidence of fraud.
But here we are—eight years later—watching the same lie used to justify a sweeping, unprecedented power grab. This is not about facts. It’s about engineering a future where only certain people get to vote.
It’s about constructing a voting system so hostile, so punishing, and so inaccessible that only the privileged and the powerful can break through it.
This Is Not Normal. This Is Not Legal. This Is the Point.
Let’s be clear: This is unconstitutional. The U.S. Constitution gives states—not the federal government—broad authority to regulate the “times, places, and manner” of elections. Trump’s executive order is a direct assault on that authority. It threatens to override state voting laws under the false flag of “uniformity,” while punishing states that refuse to go along with it.
Legal experts have already sounded the alarm.
The ACLU called it a “full-frontal attack on voting rights.”
Officials in states like Connecticut have vowed to challenge it in court, calling it “illegal” and “authoritarian.”
Election law scholars from coast to coast have said this order is not just aggressive—it’s openly unconstitutional.
But let’s not be naïve. Trump and his allies are not concerned with constitutionality.
They are concerned with control.
And this is the playbook:
- Create a fake crisis (non-citizen voting fraud)
- Position yourself as the savior
- Dismantle democratic systems in the name of security
We have seen this before. It is the oldest trick in the fascist book. And it works—because it sounds just reasonable enough to pass on cable news.
We Have Been Here Before, But This Time It’s Different
We’ve seen voter suppression in America before. In fact, we were built on it. From poll taxes to literacy tests to gerrymandering to felony disenfranchisement, America has a long and shameful tradition of limiting the vote to the few and the powerful.
But this is something else. This is a federal mandate that directly targets poor people, Black people, brown people, the elderly, immigrants, and anyone who isn’t already comfortably inside the system.
And it’s being rolled out not quietly, but proudly.
Trump isn’t hiding this. His supporters are celebrating it.
And why wouldn’t they?
They know that if the electorate keeps growing more diverse, more informed, and more progressive, their ideology is finished.
So they’re rigging the game before it starts.
And don’t think this is just about 2026 or 2028.
This is a long game.
This is about remaking the electoral map permanently.
If this order survives court challenges, it will become the blueprint for every election moving forward. It will become normalized. Institutionalized. Expected.
And that’s how democracies die:
Not with tanks in the streets, but with paperwork.
This Is a Five-Alarm Fire. So Where Is the Outrage?
Where is the outcry from the Democratic Party?
Where is the unified voice from state governors pledging noncompliance?
Where are the emergency hearings, the walkouts, the filibusters, the organized resistance?
The truth is—we’ve become numb.
After years of Trump’s chaos, each new attack on democracy is met with a kind of exhausted shrug.
But this one?
This one should terrify you.
Because it’s not just rhetoric. It’s not a dog whistle.
It’s an executive order with the force of law.
And if we don’t fight it now—with everything we’ve got—it will define the next era of American politics.
It is not an exaggeration to say: this may be our last chance to protect free and fair elections in this country.
If You’re Not Alarmed, You’re Not Paying Attention
We have reached the point in the movie where the alarms are going off, the sirens are blaring, and the doors are slamming shut.
And still, people ask:
“Isn’t that a bit dramatic?”
“Can’t we just wait to see how the courts rule?”
“Surely someone will stop this…”
No.
You. Are. Someone.
And this is your moment.
To speak.
To organize.
To act.
Because the people who are pushing this nightmare?
They’re counting on your silence.
They’re counting on your cynicism.
They’re counting on you to say, “It’s complicated,” and go back to brunch.
Don’t.
The Future Is Watching
Trump’s executive order is not just an attack on voters.
It is an attack on the very idea of consent of the governed.
It is an attack on the idea that your voice, your vote, your body, and your freedom matter.
And it must be met with more than condemnation.
It must be met with mass resistance.
With lawsuits.
With protests.
With national outrage.
With the full weight of a people who refuse to let democracy be dismantled in front of them—again.
Because if this stands, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
History will ask what we did when the authoritarian hand reached for the ballot box.
Let the answer be:
We fought back.
Lisa Hayes is a life coach, writer, and editor of Confluence Daily, specializing in social issues, political issues, and mental health. Her work has appeared in publications like Huffington Post and Real Simple. She is also the Communications Director for a local fire department in Mexico and runs a life coach training program called The Coaching Guild.
