I’ve written a number of times about the central role of state sovereignty in resisting Trump’s growing tyranny and the critical fact that states control the administration of elections. With that in mind, I want to flag what I think is a key part of that equation. It’s not meant to be alarmist. It’s simply a matter of preparation.

As we’ve discussed, states control the administration of elections, subject to Congress setting standards for the administration of elections. This critical fact isn’t just a matter of law. It’s about the machinery of government. The states are there and the federal government isn’t. Trump can dash off a million executive orders but that doesn’t make them real or meaningful. More dangerous, he might try to use Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents or federal troops to create a climate of intimidation at the ballot box. That threat is real. But because of the structure of our elections, the key danger point likely comes later. Let’s assume the 2026 election or more likely the 2028 election goes more or less unmolested. Now in January 2027 the new representatives and senators show up for the new Congress. Are they seated? Or do congressional Republicans somehow refuse to seat them, arguing that their elections were somehow illegitimate, that they didn’t follow one of Trump’s legally meaningless executive orders?

This is not new. But I at least hadn’t heard any of these dots connected. I wasn’t even aware of the dots. A friend mentioned to me over the weekend that he’d heard about Wall Streeters buying up the rights to tariff refunds from big corporate importers. So the idea is that a Wall Street firm goes to an importer and says, you’ve now paid $10 million in tariffs. I’ll pay you $2 million right now for the right to collect the refund if courts ever end up deciding the tariffs were illegal. My friend had also heard that one of the most aggressive buyers was Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm until recently headed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and now run by Lutnick’s sons. Twenty-something Brandon Lutnick, pictured above on the left in a 2016 photo, is the current chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald. (He must be hella talented!)