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Appeals Court Judge Explains How Republicans Are Trying to ‘Steal’ Midterms in Shocking Column: Trump Has ‘Doomed’ Us to Another J6  (https://www.mediaite.com/author/tom-durante) (Posts by Tom Durante) Tom Durante  Sep 11th, 2026, 11:05 am    Share (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fmedia%2Fnews%2Fconservative-fmr-appeals-court-judge-explains-how-republicans-are-trying-to-steal-midterms-in-shocking-column-trump-has-doomed-us-to-another-j6) X  (https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fmedia%2Fnews%2Fconservative-fmr-appeals-court-judge-explains-how-republicans-are-trying-to-steal-midterms-in-shocking-column-trump-has-doomed-us-to-another-j6) Facebook  (https://www.reddit.com/submit) (submit to reddit)    Copy Link     (index.html#open-comments)   (Michael Luttig)  (Susan Walsh/AP photo)  A former appeals court judge tore into Republicans in a lengthy piece describing how conservatives are prepping to brush off votes and steal the upcoming midterm elections. Michael Luttig , a George H.W. Bush  appointee who served as an appeals court judge from 1991 to 2006, unloaded in (https://newrepublic.com/article/215198/2027-new-congress-final-battle-american-democracy) a piece he penned for The New Republic  on Thursday, entitled, “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.” In it, (https://www.mediaite.com/tag/michael-luttig/) Luttig argued that no matter what happens in the November 3 vote, Trump and his MAGA cronies will stop at nothing to ensure that Democrats fail. He wrote: That catastrophic end could well come on January 3, 2027, when Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in Trump’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party. Trump and his Republican allies have been preparing for this final battle since January 6, 2021.  Luttig also scolded Republicans who once “professed to stand for the Constitution, principle, truth, honesty, integrity—even honor” but now only stand for President Donald Trump . “None of this is true of today’s Republican Party and this Republican Congress,” he wrote. “So enthralled with the forty-seventh president are today’s House Republicans that they long ago abandoned everything the Republican Party has stood for since its founders first met in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854.” He added: “Today’s congressional Republicans took a blood oath six years ago not just to put their party before their country, but to put Donald Trump before their country. And so it is that only weeks before the midterm elections, House Republicans have already sworn their allegiance to Donald Trump and doomed the U.S. to another January 6 next January 3.” In conclusion, Luttig invoked Abraham Lincoln as he urged readers to separate from “moral enslavement” to Trump. “If we Americans are to save our democracy from the forty-seventh president and his MAGA Republican Party, we must disenthrall ourselves from our political bondage to Donald Trump and MAGA, as Abraham Lincoln urged the nation in 1863 to disenthrall itself from its bondage to the ruinous political dogmas of its time,” he wrote. “‘We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country,’ the sixteenth president admonished. The Republican Party in particular must finally loose the chains of its political and moral enslavement to Donald Trump and separate itself from the MAGA political party cult.” Luttig implored House Republicans to “announce well before November 3 that they will not be party to Trump’s and Johnson’s attempt to steal the midterm elections from the American people. He closed with a final line: “The writing is already on the wall, Republicans.” Not long after Luttig’s piece was published, Trump addressed his supporters at the final night of his midterm election convention in Dallas, (https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/watch-trump-has-convention-audience-raise-their-hands-and-pledge-to-vote-so-help-me-god/) asking them to raise their right hands and swear to get to the polls on Nov. 3 and to “try to cheat like hell like they do.” The bizarre pledge prompted numerous critics (https://www.mediaite.com/online/its-a-cult-trump-raked-over-the-coals-for-bizarre-pledge-as-he-closed-out-midterm-convention/) to call out the “cult” behavior on social media. New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters" Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. (https://www.mediaite.com/subscribe) Subscribe now!       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