Feb. 11, 2026, 4:04 a.m. ET
President Donald Trump’s call to nationalize elections ahead of November has rightfully garnered plenty of opposition from Democrats, with many sounding the alarm for an authoritarian plot aimed at artificially boosting Republicans’ prospects.
Democrats are rightly concerned with the federal government administering elections, which are a constitutional responsibility of the states. Thankfully, it won’t likely happen, but the response reveals something about this debate.
Trump has wreaked havoc on the separation of powers and abused the power of his office. This is exacerbated by an increasingly powerful federal government and presidency.
So I want to ask Democrats, progressives and anyone else to my left who have criticized the conservative views of limited government, federalism and separation of powers for years: Are you convinced yet?
Democrats suddenly recognize danger of concentrating power
Because it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans and conservatives alike opposed Democratic attempts to nationalize elections in the name of “voting rights” under Joe Biden.
That legislation, which passed the Democrats’ narrow House majority but failed in the Senate, would have allowed the federal government to mandate same-day voter registration and create strict prohibitions on most election security measures.
In that instance, we were relentlessly called racist or otherwise wanting to suppress votes for partisan purposes, rather than our concerns about concentrating power over elections within the federal government being taken as legitimate critiques.
When many were dismayed after the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme, they lashed out against conservatives for hating poor people, students or however else you want to categorize the afflicted student loan borrowers. Few supporters of the forgiveness plan were willing to take our arguments against a butchering of the proper separation of powers seriously.
Yet, when it comes to Trump violating the separation of powers and taking up the power of the purse for himself to wield in the form of his tariff regime, suddenly everyone is up in arms about it being Congress’ job to levy taxes and the corruption that comes with a president unilaterally setting rates on his own whims.
In each of the aforementioned instances, progressives refused to take the conservative arguments against federal government overreach seriously and instead insisted that we were racist, classist or otherwise disingenuous. Now they agree?
I hope Democrats see the light, but I am not optimistic
Now that I have had my moment of “I told you so,” I want to invite all of these people into the tent. I would expect in the face of a brazenly corrupt president that the virtues of limited government would suddenly become self-evident to all, so I promise I’ll only be mildly insufferable if you decide to join us now.
Jokes aside, I do think that if ever there were a time for progressives to understand the warnings that people of my disposition have given for decades against their own excesses, it would be now.
Because it’s not just federalizing elections: Trump has at every turn attempted to consolidate the power available within the federal government behind himself. The pragmatic approach, which small-government conservatives and libertarians alike have insisted on for years, would be to limit the power afforded to the federal government in the first place and to divide the powers it is granted among the branches appropriately.
Federalism, separation of powers and limited government arguments are only prudential if followed when your team is both in and out of power. It isn’t principled to make these arguments only when convenient, nor does it protect against tyranny and corruption to make these arguments only when the guy you like is abusing his power.
It’s an unfortunate irony that the perfect case study for why concentrating power in the federal government, and even worse within the executive branch, is a bad idea has come from the once “conservative” American political party. For that reason, I doubt we’ll actually see much change with the Trump administration.
I sadly predict that progressives will walk away with the idea that a disproportionately powerful president is fine and dandy, so long as they win elections. Worse yet is that the lack of Republican pushback against Trump will give Democrats political cover to pursue worse and worse violations in a similar manner.
Republicans are now in the inverse situation, in which the warnings that “all of this will be used against you” are falling on deaf ears, and Democrats will surely do exactly that given the opportunity. The cycle of escalating presidential abuses sadly seems destined to continue.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
