50+ progressive groups plan for 'mass public unrest' if Trump loses -- but won't leave office

President Donald Trump has said that the 2020 election results will be illegitimate if he loses -- despite trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls. Now, progressives are planning to deal with what may come after Election Day 2020, according to a new report in The Daily Beast.

"Last week, a coalition of leading progressive groups gathered on Zoom to begin organizing for what they envision as the post-Election Day political apocalypse scenario," The Beast's Sam Stein reported.

"Put together by the Fight Back Table—an initiative launched after the 2016 election to get a constellation of lefty organizations to work more closely together—the meeting dealt with the operational demands expected if the November election ends without a clear outcome or with a Joe Biden win that Donald Trump refuses to recognize," Stein reported. "Sources familiar with the discussions described them as serious with a modestly panicked undertone. A smaller FBT session last fall had talked about post-election planning, but those discussions were tabled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the first time they were bringing the matter to the 50-plus organizations that make up the coalition. To formalize the effort, they gave it a name: the 'Democracy Defense Nerve Center.'"

"Over the course of two hours, participants broached the question of what the progressive political ecosystem can functionally do in a series of election scenarios," Stein reported. "They began charting out what it would take to stand up a multi-state communications arm to fight disinformation, a training program for nonviolent civil disobedience, and the underpinnings of what one official described as 'mass public unrest.'"

The group reported studied the Transition Integrity Project report warning, "The potential for violent conflict is high."

The Beast interviewed "one source familiar with the Democracy Defense Nerve Center operations."

“I don’t know what the strategy is when armed right-wing militia dudes show up in polling places,” the source said. “This [Kyle] Rittenhouse guy is being lionized on the right, right now. If it is being unleashed that you can shoot people and be a hero, I don’t know what preparation we can possibly do for that.”