There is no doubt that the first and second assassination attempts on Republican Party presidential elections candidate Donald Trump, the first time in July and the second time in September, foreshadow the fact that the US elections are heating up.

These incidents have become part of a vicious cycle that began with the attack on Capitol Hill in January 2021 and will likely continue for years, with the likelihood that this November’s elections will be more extreme than previous ones in terms of violence and recriminations.

The fact is that the United States is gearing up for one of the most competitive and polarising presidential elections in history this November, with estimates predicting that they will be the most difficult in terms of threats, both internal and external, ranging from disinformation campaigns and escalating violence to expectations of cyberattacks on infrastructure.

The US has become lacking in “ideological security”, meaning that US elections are now portrayed from an “existential perspective”, with both parties insisting that, in Trump’s words, “if we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’ll have another election in this country.” Trump has also made the terrifying statement that “there will be a ‘bloodbath’” if he loses the elections.

As a result, US federal agencies recognise that “elections security” is the real guarantee of the completion of the electoral process, which is the cornerstone of American democracy. They are doing their utmost to manage the risks that threaten the electoral infrastructure.

The concept of elections security is concerning, however. Elections are a purely political matter, testing the health of democracy in the country and subject to the rules of democracy including transparency, integrity, the peaceful alternation of power, and other indicators. Therefore, securitising the elections raises questions and fears about the democratic scene in the country.

Elections security cannot be achieved overnight, and it needs “securitisation theory” in order to approach the elections from a security perspective. This theory can help the US intelligence community and US law enforcement impose more security measures on the elections.

Securitisation theory is one of the most prominent contributions of the Copenhagen School of Security Studies (CSSS), which emerged during the 1990s to emphasise the need to broaden and deepen the concept of security as a social construct, established through communication between the state and its institutions on the one hand and the public on the other, in order to accommodate non-traditional security threats.

The latter have become transnational issues, such as climate change, terrorism, environmental degradation, illegal migration, the influx of refugees, and the spread of diseases and epidemics.

According to the Copenhagen theorists, securitisation means securitising an issue that was not previously perceived as a security issue, moving the issue from the realm of low politics (the rules of democracy, transparency, and decision-making procedures) to the realm of high politics (urgent priorities). Securitisation focuses on the “rhetorical acts” of the political elite and the major institutions, which convinces the public that an issue is a threat to the existential survival of society and that extraordinary measures must be taken to overcome it.

The rhetorical action that the Biden administration and the US federal agencies delivers can legitimise measures taken to enhance elections security in one of the most polarising elections ever.

The securitisation process will allow the US government to adopt exceptional measures to address the complex existential threats surrounding the presidential race, especially since these threats are overlapping, complex, and difficult to separate in terms of their internal and external dimensions.

Internal threats include lone-wolf terrorist attacks, incendiary rhetoric from the far left and far right, positive indicators of justification for violence, fears of a civil war, especially from Trump and many of his allies who have repeatedly warned that another electoral loss would lead to a civil war or “revolution” in the US, and threats to assassinate candidates and officials.

External threats emanate from Russia, China, and Iran, as these countries seek, through their “malign influence”, to undermine confidence in the US elections. Regarding these external threats, the US intelligence agencies have identified the following:

Russia: the US Department of Justice reported in early September that Russia has paid nearly $10 million to hire American influencers, some with millions of followers, “to amplify divisions in the United States during the election period”. In the same context, the US Department of Justice has seized dozens of websites that the Russian government allegedly uses to spread misinformation in an attempt to interfere in the US presidential elections.

China: Beijing is adopting a campaign called “spamouflage” by using fake or hacked accounts impersonating US citizens to spread anti-Western sentiment before the elections.

Iran: Tehran has emerged as a major player in the world of US election disinformation, having already hacked individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and attempted similar attacks on the Biden and Harris campaigns. Iran is now believed to be following a similar approach to that which Russia developed in 2016 to target the US presidential race.

These threats require the US federal agencies to take extraordinary measures to achieve elections security, in order to: protect the security of electoral voting systems; protect the right to vote; address threats of violence and physical harm; combat foreign threats; and fight electoral fraud and campaign finance violations.

Two actions can be noted that reflect the securitisation of this year’s US elections. The first is that the US Department of Defence announced in August its approval of a request from the US Department of Homeland Security to provide secret service assistance to the presidential and vice-presidential candidates during the 2024 election campaigns and through Inauguration Day 2025.

The second is that the US Department of Homeland Security announced that 6 January 2025 will be a “special event” requiring additional security measures when Congress meets to certify the winner of the 2024 presidential elections in order to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants and to prevent a repeat of the Capitol Hill attack in 2021.

Elections security can only be achieved through the securitisation of the 2024 US elections, as this will contribute to dealing with security as a “social practice”, as one involving tangible and intangible materials such as weapons, aggressive behaviour, the distribution of power, and the forms of military force, and as a “rhetorical act” in order to justify the exceptional measures that the US authorities may take to deal with threats that have become an existential danger to the unprecedentedly polarised political situation in the US.

The writer is a researcher in international and strategic affairs and a specialist in international security studies.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly