Up until now, some Democratic worries about the upcoming midterm elections have been dismissed by the "It could never happen here" crowd as unfounded nightmares. They pooh-pooh such worries as being laughably outlandish and accuse people who express these worries for overreacting about things that couldn't possibly happen right here in the good ol' U.S. of A. But this week should make such scenarios a whole lot less laughable and a whole lot more worrisome.

I am not talking about the Democrats' chances for victory in the elections. That will either happen or not, depending on where the voters are this November. Instead I refer to the fears that a "free and fair" election will not take place at all under Donald Trump. Those fears got a whole lot more real this week, and they seem to be increasing as the week goes on.

First, Trump's feds got a warrant and seized all the election records from the 2020 presidential election from Fulton County, Georgia. Trump is convinced that somehow this election was "rigged" and "stolen" from him, even though there isn't a scintilla of a shred of an iota of evidence to back this conspiracy theory up. It's just Trump being the biggest sore loser of all time in American politics, nothing more. Those ballots were counted, recounted, and then recounted again -- and each time they showed that Trump lost. None of the 60-plus court cases Trump's conspiracy-theorist lawyers filed in response to the election managed to come up with any proof of anything but what the federal government (under Trump) said -- that it was the most secure election in American history. But somehow this week the F.B.I. managed to get a warrant anyway and whisked away all the records down in Georgia. The chain of custody of these ballots (and the accompanying paperwork) has now been broken, and nothing the F.B.I. says in the future about it should be believed (for obvious reasons).

Then Trump mused about just taking over this year's elections nationwide. He was a guest on a podcast from Dan Bongino, who until recently was the F.B.I.'s deputy director, and Trump shared what he wanted to see happen: "We should take over the voting, the voting... The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting." Federalizing the elections process would be a serious breach of the U.S. Constitution, but that's never stopped Trump from doing what he feels like before. Here's what else he had to say:

On Monday, while speaking to [Dan] Bongino, [Donald] Trump said without offering evidence that there are "states that are so crooked" and that there are "states that I won that show I didn't win." He also baselessly claimed that undocumented immigrants were allowed to vote illegally in 2020.

He then teased that "some interesting things" will "come out" of Georgia but did not discuss the FBI warrant or its findings.

. . .

This is not the first time Trump has tried to minimize states' roles in the running of elections. In August, while complaining in a Truth Social post about mail-in voting, Trump said he would sign an executive order that would "help bring HONESTY" to this year's midterm elections, arguing that states are meant to follow federal instructions when it comes to voting.

"Remember, the states are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes," Trump wrote then. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do."

After Bongino's podcast aired, the White House tried to walk back Trump's comments, swearing that he was just supporting a national voter I.D. bill in Congress, but absolutely nobody believed this. Afterwards, Trump even doubled down on the idea in the Oval Office:

Mr. [Donald] Trump said on Tuesday that he believed the federal government should "get involved" in elections that are riddled with "corruption," reiterating his position that the federal government should usurp state laws by exerting control over local elections.

If states "can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over," he said in the Oval Office, accusing several Democratic-run cities of corruption. "Look at some of the places -- that horrible corruption on elections -- and the federal government should not allow that," he added. "The federal government should get involved."

Mr. Trump's remarks came hours after the White House tried to walk back his comments from a day earlier that his party should nationalize elections. And they were the latest iteration of his unsubstantiated claims that U.S. elections are rigged, as Republicans face potentially big losses this fall.

Note that Trump said not a word about the legislation, instead restating what he had previously said in more detail. And now he's being urged to just let his freak flag fly and come right out and pre-emptively deploy the troops to polling places by Steve Bannon (who used to be a top Trump White House advisor), on his own podcast:

"We're going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We're not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again," Bannon said Tuesday on his podcast. "And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen."

The conservative influencer reiterated his response a day later, calling for Trump to go even further and send U.S. Army troops to voting locations. Federal law prohibits the president from deploying military troops "at any place where a general or special election is held," and it is a crime in several states to carry a firearm at or near a polling place.

"President Trump has to nationalize the election. You've got to put -- not just, I think, ICE -- you've got to call up the 82nd and 101st Airborne [Divisions] on the Insurrection Act," Bannon said Wednesday. "You've got to get around every poll and make sure only people with IDs, people... actually registered to vote and people that are United States citizens vote in this election."

The article goes on to point out that Trump has been open to the use of troops in elections previously:

After the 2020 presidential election, Trump considered signing an executive order that would have directed the military to seize voting machines, but he ultimately never followed through on the threat. He told the New York Times in an interview last month that he "should have" used the National Guard to seize election boxes, but did not say whether he would consider doing so in the future.

You can see why some Democrats are having nightmares about what is going to happen in the midterms. Trump is now completely unchained -- there are no "adults in the room" left in the White House who would talk him down from using U.S. troops either during or after an election. And Trump seems to be actively considering the idea. Trump's obsessions are ridiculous and farfetched -- right up until they aren't (see: Greenland). So it is entirely possible he will decide to do something of a totalitarian nature for the midterms. Troops at polling places was once considered unthinkable, but then again so was troops in American cities attacking citizens for no reason.

Even if Trump holds back and restrains himself from sending in ICE or the National Guard or the 101st Airborne Division, there is still a nightmarish fear left to worry about. Because what is Trump going to do if he loses the midterms in a big way?

Trump has already proven that he is the biggest sore-loser crybaby of all time, when it comes to admitting electoral defeat. As far as he is concerned, any Democrat winning any election anywhere is proof positive that that election was somehow "rigged." So what happens if a blue wave becomes a tsunami and hands Democrats control of not just the House but also the Senate? How is Trump going to react to that?

A blizzard of lawsuits will probably be filed in every swing district and state the Republicans lose, except this time it may be the Department of Justice filing them instead of Rudy Giuliani. Will Trump also send in the troops to just grab all the ballots? If that is allowed to happen, then all bets are off, because who among us trusts Kash Patel or Pam Bondi not to just conveniently "lose" enough ballots to make the Republican candidates the victor?

Donald Trump is well on the path to transforming America into a banana-republic dictatorship already, and he is now openly musing about interfering in the upcoming elections. This is indeed a nightmarish scenario. But it is no longer one that can just be dismissed out of hand as: "Oh, that'll never happen here." Because it could, with Trump in charge. And if it does -- in the 250th year of its existence -- American democracy will be at an end.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant