The Guardian view on the US midterms and election interference: Trump’s attempted heist is already under way | Editorial

Voters are turning against the Republicans. But the clearest possible message is needed to safeguard democracy

The psychologist Jennifer Freyd identified a pattern often used by perpetrators: deny, accuse, and reverse victim and offender. More than one observer has noted that Donald Trump employs that pattern politically. With polls suggesting Republicans are likely to lose the House and perhaps the Senate too in the midterms, the man who refused to accept Americans' democratic verdict in 2020 is hawking a narrative of cheating Democrats who will steal seats via illegitimate votes.

The January 6 insurrection showed how acute the peril to American democracy had become. It is more so now. This time, Republican efforts to undermine the results began well in advance. In 2020, Mr Trump's vice-president, Mike Pence, the attorney general, William Barr, and others refused his most outrageous demands; now the justice department is supine. And the supreme court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act, which safeguarded against the worst kinds of racial discrimination, means that states no longer require pre-approval for decisions that could well tilt a race. Districts have already been redrawn.