Brandon Gage, Alternet

Former President Donald Trump could "lose the popular vote, lose the electoral college, lose all his legal cases and still end up president of the United States in an entirely legal manner" in 2024, The Guardian’s Stephen Marche warns in a Monday opinion column. "It's called a contingent election."

Marche explains, "A contingent election is the process put in place to deal with the eventuality in which no presidential candidate reaches the threshold of 270 votes in the Electoral College. In the early days of the American republic, when the duopoly of the two-party system was neither desired nor expected, this process was essential.

Marche notes, "There have been two contingent elections in US history. The first was in 1825. The year before, Andrew Jackson, the man from the $20 bill, had won the plurality of votes and the plurality of Electoral College votes as well, but after extensive, elaborate negotiations, John Quincy Adams took the presidency mostly by offering Henry Clay, who had come third in the election, secretary of state. Jackson, though shocked, conceded gracefully. He knew his time would come. His supporters used the taint of Adams' 'corrupt bargain' with Clay to ensure Jackson's victory in 1828." According to Marche, a similar scenario could play out next year.

"The possibility of the Electoral College releasing a confusing result, or being unable to certify a satisfying result by two months after the election, is quite real," Marche writes. "The Electoral College, even at its best, is an arcane system, unworthy of a 21st-century country. Maine and Nebraska don't necessarily have every elector go to the party that won the state as a whole. There have been, up to 2020, 165 faithless electors in American history – electors who didn't vote for the candidate they had pledged to vote for."

Marche recalls, "In 1836, Virginia faithless electors forced a contingent election for vice president. If the 270 marker has not been reached by 6th January, the contingent election takes place automatically. And the contingent election isn’t decided by the popular votes or the number of Electoral College votes. Each state delegation in the House of Representatives is given a single vote for president. Each state delegation in the Senate is given a single vote for vice president."

Marche adds, "All that would be required, from a technical, legal standpoint, is for enough Electoral College votes to be uncounted or uncertified for the contingent election to take place, virtually guaranteeing a Republican victory and hence a Trump presidency. It would be entirely legal and constitutional. It just wouldn't be recognizably democratic to anyone. Remember that autocracies have elections. It doesn't matter who votes. It matters who counts."

If this were to occur, Marche concludes, "The real danger of 2024 isn't even the possibility of a Trump presidency. It's that the electoral system, in its arcane decrepitude, will produce an outcome that won't be credible to anybody. The danger of 2024 is that it will be the last election."

Fulton Couty Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee's decision to allow former President Donald Trump's criminal 2020 election subversion trial to be televised suggests that Trump may have finally met his media "spectacle" match,"The New Yorker's Charles Bethea writes.

"A review of his body of work reveals an entertainer with a knack for surprising his audience," Bethea says. "See, for example, the What-A-Man pageant, for performative young men, held annually in the early two-thousands, at North Cobb High School, in Kennesaw, Georgia. Contestants offered their best pickup lines and revealed other talents. The quarterback usually won. But, in 2007, a self-described 'orch dork' took home the honor. That dork? Scott McAfee. Tall and decked out in black, he wore a Stars-and-Stripes-patterned bandanna around his blond hair as he performed Jimi Hendrix's version of The Star-Spangled Banner on an electrified cello. His classmates screamed for him to toss his shirt into the crowd."

McAfee studied music before becoming a lawyer and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, and Bethaa notes that "after getting his law degree, he worked as a state prosecutor and a federal prosecutor, and then became the inspector general of Georgia."

Bethea continues, "Earlier this year, McAfee, who is thirty-four, was appointed to the Superior Court of Fulton County. In August, he was chosen for the Trump case by a random selection process. The decision to televise the proceedings was in keeping with his typical courtroom rules."

McAfee said, "I have no aspiration to become the next Judge Ito,' referring to Lance Ito, the bearded and bespectacled judge who presided over the OJ Simpson trial, in 1995, as a hundred and fifty million Americans tuned in to watch," Bethea adds. "'Or the next Judge Judy, for that matter.' The Trump trial will surely surpass both Ito's and Judy's ratings. He went on, 'The idea with my job, in general, is to keep your head down. Stay even-keeled and manage expectations. This is not What-A-Man North Cobb 2007. It'll be mission accomplished if I personally bore everyone to death during my trials.'"

Former President Donald Trump "flubbed numbers, misstated facts, or omitted critical context" after boasting that he had "all the facts" to NBC News moderator Kristen Welker during her debut as the new host of Meet the Press on Sunday, according to NBC News correspondent Jane C. Timm's fact-check.

"Trump made a spate of false and misleading comments about immigration, foreign policy, abortion, and more" on "at least" eleven occasions, Timm writes. "Trump's presidency was marked by repeated false, exaggerated, and misleading claims. Some of those claims drove policy, while another triggered an impeachment. Trump's false view that the election was stolen helped land him and dozens of others in legal trouble in Georgia. One senior aide — during a Meet the Press interview — even coined the phrase 'alternative facts' in defense of the president."

Below are four of Trump's most notable whoppers.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Immigration:

• Trump: "Millions of illegal immigrants coming into our country, flooding our cities, flooding the countryside. I think the number is going to be 15 million people by the time you end this, by the end of this year. I think the real number is going to be 15 million people."
• Timm: "There's no evidence that 15 million people will cross the border this year. That's more than the total number of people, 11.4 million, that the U.S. government estimates are here without legal authorization."

The January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol:

• Trump: "These people on January 6th — some of them never even went into the building, and they're being given sentences of many years."
• Timm: "This is missing critical context. Some of the defendants who received some of the longest sentences of any January 6th participants — including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — did not enter the Capitol building themselves but received lengthy sentences after they were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Some of the most vicious assaults of the Capitol attack were committed by January 6th participants who never stepped foot in the building, and some of those individuals received significant sentences, too."

Former Wall Street Journal Washington Bureau Chief and Bloomberg Washington Executive Editor Al Hunt warned in a dire opinion column in The Messenger on Sunday that criminally indicted ex-President Donald Trump "is the only candidate that I think poses an existential threat to Democracy" even though Hunt has "covered presidential politics for more than half a century."

Next year's contest will "be one of the darkest races in memory and "is shrouded in several myths," Hunt explains. "One is that Joe Biden is the best candidate to save the country from Donald Trump: Actually, he may be among the more vulnerable. If another Democrat such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer were the nominee, I believe she would beat Trump like a drum. The Republican myth is that Trump, who dominates GOP polls, is their best horse: Actually, he is a weak general election candidate. I have little doubt that former South Carolina governor and United Nationals [sic] ambassador Nikki Haley would pound a rival almost 30 years older."

Hunt fears that while "the Biden team may hope to take the high road and focus on his many accomplishments," Trump securing his party's nomination could result in a scenario in which the "bad drives out the good."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Hunt writes, "This isn't ideological: Ronald Reagan and others were far more conservative on economic, social, and national security matters. Trump has said — and shown — that he simply doesn't believe in democracy and that the Constitution should be ignored, if necessary, to give him the presidency. He has learned from his first term: He will try to dismantle civil service, overreach on executive actions, use the IRS and Justice Department to go after political opponents, disrupt international alliances, gut NATO, and embolden Vladimir Putin. There will be no Jim Mattis, John Kelly, or Gary Cohn to occasionally apply the brakes on Trump's darker impulses. There will only be loyalists and second-tier sycophants."

Hunt predicts that "Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party will deepen into semi-permanence" and that "The Republican Club on Capitol Hill can take down the pictures of Eisenhower, Bush, and Reagan" because "Trump doesn't like to share attention."

Moreover, although "Biden still is sharp and conversant in important policy matters," Hunt laments that "another four years of Biden looks good only compared to the unimaginable Trump return."

Hunt worries that time is running out to nip the accelerating "trainwreck" in the bud, especially since "there won't be a serious challenge to the president, despite rising fears in the party that in a race with a third-party candidate, even Cornel West, Trump today would be the favorite," adding, "If Biden unexpectedly pulls out, say October 20th, it's hard to find any Democratic politician, donor, or operative who thinks Kamala Harris would clear any field. Under this remote scenario, the top choice might be Governor Whitmer. The most ready to jump in is California Governor Gavin Newsom."

READ MORE: Trump to ditch Iowa evangelical gathering after GOP gov said 'voters expect him' to attend events

Hunt's full editorial is available at this link.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley is retiring on September 29th. But before he departs, Milley told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Wednesday that a story about his time serving under former President Donald Trump never happened.

Milley, CNN's Jeremy Herb recalls, was "Trump's chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the final 16 months of his time in office. He had an outsized role in some of the most consequential events of Trump's presidency, including the response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and actions he took after January 6, 2001, when he was concerned that Trump could go 'rogue.'"

Herb continues, "Milley also became a significant figure in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents, when Trump claimed to have a plan to attack Iran authored by Milley. Trump was captured on audio tape talking about the plan with biographers for Meadows in July 2021 at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort, acknowledging he had not declassified the document."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Milley pushed back against Trump's recollection.

"I don't know the document they're talking about. I've never seen – no one's presented me with what it is they're talking about. So, I really still can't comment on it," Milley said. "But I can assure you that, you know, a military attack on Iran is a very, very serious undertaking. We have capabilities. We have plans – that's not particularly unusual – to comment on that. But I am not going to go further and discuss any of the details."

Herb notes that "in a superseding indictment filed against Trump in July, the special counsel's team alleged that Trump willfully retained a top-secret document that was a 'presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country,' which CNN reported was Iran." Herb also writes that Trump's final White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows crafted a "four-page report" that "contained the general's own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency. President Trump denied those requests every time."

Milley explained to Zakaria that Meadows' account, too, is false:

I can tell you with certainty that this chairman never recommended a wholesale attack on Iran. And to do that, I think would require a significant degree of risk that we may or may not want to take given the circumstances, but that that part of it didn't happen. And I'm not sure I don't know the exact quotes that Mr. Meadows said, but I can assure you I know what I've done and it's not to recommend an attack on Iran.

READ MORE: Tuberville 'doesn't know what the hell he's talking about' after missing Joint Chiefs chair retirement date: analysis

Herb's scoop is available at this link.

MyPillow chief executive officer and 2020 election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell "lost his cool during a series of legal depositions recently," the Star Herald's Deena Winter reports.

Lindell, who is one of ex-President Donald Trump's most vocal champions, "yelled, swore, called lawyers names, banged his fist on a table, and repeatedly slammed down a pile of legal documents during a March deposition he gave defending himself in a defamation lawsuit," Winter writes.

"Eric Coomer, former director of product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, sued Chaska-based MyPillow and Lindell for promoting baseless allegations that the company helped rig the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump," Winter notes. In response, Lindell called Coomer a "scumbag" and then snapped, "How dare he come and sue MyPillow?"

The latest filing, Winter continues, "says Lindell took phone calls during his deposition and insisted on unscheduled breaks. At one point during his deposition, Lindell left to go on Steve Bannon's podcast, where he promoted MyPillow, offering deep discounts to celebrate the company’s 20-year anniversary. He then stormed out of his final deposition in Minneapolis in August."

Winter adds, "During one deposition, Lindell rejected the suggestion that he's spinning election conspiracies alongside promotions for his company, saying people don't know him as 'the MyPillow guy,' but as an 'election guy' and 'a guy trying to save the country.' He called Coomer's attorneys 'traitors' for suing his 'made in America' company."

Lindell whined "My company has been hurt so bad because of people like Eric Coomer. It's a joke saying MyPillow benefited from this" and attacked Coomer's lawyers. "When you say lumpy pillows, now you're an a–hole,” Lindell griped, per Winter. "Now he's an a–hole. He's an ambulance-chasing a--hole.'"

Winter also recalls that "in a motion filed Friday, Lindell asked the judge to throw out Coomer's defamation claim, denying he accused Coomer of rigging the election. The filing noted that Coomer lost his job after being outed for denigrating Trump on Facebook, calling him 'autocratic,' 'narcissistic,' and a 'fascist,' among other things."

The leader of the Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officers Association compared his support of former President Donald Trump to civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during a recent event, Smokey Mountain News Kyle Perrotti reports.

"CSPOA is a law enforcement association that operates on the tenet that the sheriff is the highest authority in any county and has the right, even the duty, to reject any perceived intrusion by federal entities," Perrotti notes. "This has recently manifested in the group’s strong election denial and belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories; at the event, several speakers and attendees swore noncompliance with any future mask or vaccine mandates and expressed total distrust of all public health organizations."

Retired Graham County, Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, "Dar Leaf, a Michigan sheriff who has proven a staunch ally," and United States Congressman Chuck Edwards (R-North Carolina), Perrotti writes, "showed his adherence to their beliefs when a field representative called Mack's group 'trailblazers' and presented Mack with a citation."

Perrotti recalls that "in 1994, Mack gained instant popularity among far-right activists when he initiated a suit that would ultimately lead the US Supreme Court to overturn a provision in the Brady Handgun Violence Act of 1993, named after President Ronald Reagan's Press Secretary James Brady, who was severely wounded in an attempt on Reagan’s life in 1981. The provision required sheriffs like Mack to conduct background checks on firearms purchasers until the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) could be implemented, and Mack stood his ground when federal authorities sought to enforce it in his Arizona county."

At CSPOA's awards ceremony, radio talk show host Max Norton stated that "[President] Joe Biden is walking on the Constitution every day that we are alive, and it's ridiculous, adding, "A sitting president should not be abusing the Constitution." Norton also praised Trump on behalf of CSPOA, calling him "our salvation."

Mack in his address, Perrotti continues, "hit many of the beats the audience had hoped for — complaints about COVID mandates, election denial, fears of government overreach, scrutiny of perceived elitism in Washington, DC — and the crowd roared with applause each time."

Mack then compared his allegiance to Trump with MLK's fight for racial equality, claiming, "Martin Luther King didn't shy away from controversy. He stood strong. He endured over 30 arrests. I think we can stand for freedom a little bit and say, 'I'm going to stand strong like Martin Luther King and our founding fathers.'"

Bodycam footage released on Monday shows a Seattle, Washington cop "audibly laughing and joking on a phone call the day after an incident where a fellow officer had hit and killed a pedestrian with their patrol car," KIRO 7 reports.

"The officer on the call is identified as Seattle Police Officers’ Guild Vice President Daniel Auderer. In it, Auderer can be heard talking about the incident where 23-year-old exchange student Jaahnavi Kandula was hit by Officer Kevin Dave," the outlet explains.

KIRO 7 says that "shortly after saying 'she’s dead,' Auderer laughs and says 'it's a regular person,' referring to Kandula. He then says 'just write a check -- $11,000, she was 26 anyway, she had limited value.'"

Per KIRO 7, "Auderer also mentions that Dave was 'going 50 [miles an hour],' stating how 'that's not out of control' for a trained driver. A report released in June revealed that Dave was actually traveling at 74 miles an hour in a 25-mile-an-hour zone while responding to a different call."

KIRO 7 recalls that "Auderer had responded to the scene on the night of Jan. 23 to conduct a drug recognition test on Dave. According to the timestamp on the bodycam video, Auderer's phone call about the incident took place the following evening."

Local residents expressed outrage to KIRO 7 about Auderer's conduct.

"I think these people need to be investigated. This kind of behavior is not expected from a public servant. Especially in that moment," Shub of Seattle said. Another person added, "Like laughing is one, but those comments….they were even worse than the laughter."

University of Alabama Tuscaloosa football fans lobbed racist taunts at University of Texas Austin players during Saturday's game at Bryant-Denny Stadium, The Shadow League's Myles Berry reports.

"According to AL.com, a video of Alabama fans yelling and shouting racist, anti-gay, and just generally offensive remarks at Texas fans and players was posted," Berry writes. There were comments from fans in the stands, shouting things such as 'Go back to the projects,' which is one of the more prominent comments made among plenty of other offensive comments. But while the players had to hear the offensive taunts coming from the Crimson Tide faithful, some of the friends and family of the Texas players also had to withstand a lot of the offensive comments that were being thrown out."

Berry says, "This is an unfortunate circumstance for Alabama as a few rotten apples are looking to spoil the name of a historically successful and dominant football program that has produced plenty of players and people who are upstanding people and players."

AL's Mark Heim noted on Sunday that there were also incidents of players being "spit on and hit with beer cans and water bottles."

Heim added, however, that "While Texas players were experiencing the ugly side of sports, one Texas fan took to Reddit to thank Alabama fans for their hospitality."

The individual wrote:

Texas fan here, my wife and I attended our first Visitor game at Bryant-Denny Stadium. She was very nervous that she’d be, as she put it, ‘confronted’ by Bama fans. I just wanted to express gratitude about our entire experience visiting you guys. The home fans were great, they were very welcoming and contributed authentic and genuine conversation with us.

This allowed her to relax and enjoy the game and atmosphere. The entertainment from the stadium during the breaks was a blast (specifically when everyone lit their camera phones). We both have an immense amount of respect for Alabama and their program. We’re looking forward to the many future games our teams will have together, and we hope to be back soon. Roll Tide.

Watch the video below.

Ginni Thomas, the wife of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, and Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society's Board of Directors, were working behind the scenes with the support of a controversial billionaire benefactor prior to SCOTUS' Citizen's United ruling, Politico's Heidi Pryzbyla reports.

That decision, Pryzbyla recalls, "loosened restrictions on campaign spending and unleashed a flow of anonymous donor money to nonprofit groups run by political activists. In the months before the ruling dropped in January of that year, a group of conservative activists came together to create just such an organization. Its mission would be to, at the time, block then-President Barack Obama's pet initiatives."

Pryzbyla continues, "She also had a rich backer: Harlan Crow, the manufacturing billionaire who had helped Thomas and her husband in many ways, from funding luxury vacations to picking up tuition payments for their great-nephew."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

According to one person with knowledge of what transpired, "Ginni really wanted to build an organization and be a movement leader," adding, "Leonard [Leo] was going to be the conduit of that."

Pryzbyla explains, "At the time, the Citizens United ruling was widely expected, as the court had already signaled its intentions. When it came, it upended nearly 100 years of campaign spending restrictions. The conservative legal movement seized the moment with greater success than any other group, and the consequences have shaped American jurisprudence and politics in dramatic ways."

Between September 2009 and February 2010, Pryzbyla lays out how "Leo, Thomas, and Crow would spring a billion-dollar force that has helped remake the judiciary and overturn longstanding legal precedents on abortion, affirmative action, and many other issues. It funded legal scholars to devise theories to challenge liberal precedents, helped to elect state attorneys general willing to apply those theories, and launched lavish campaigns for conservative judicial nominees who would cite those theories in their rulings from the bench."

Pryzbyla adds, "Leo's role as the central figure in this movement has long been known, culminating in his acquisition last year of what many believe to be the largest political donation in history. Few are aware of the extent to which the movement's baby steps were taken in concert with Ginni Thomas. Two months before the Citizens United decision, but after the justices had signaled their intentions by requesting new arguments, attorney Cleta Mitchell — later to play a role in Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 elections — filed papers for Ginni Thomas to create a nonprofit group of a type that ultimately benefited from the decision. Leo was one of two directors listed on a separate application to conduct business in the state of Virginia. Thomas was president. She signed it on New Year's Eve of 2009, and Crow provided much of the initial cash. A key Leo aide, Sarah Field, would come aboard to help Thomas manage the group, which they called Liberty Central."

A trio of attorneys penned an open letter to indicted Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro on Thursday urging him to "swallow hard, cooperate, stay out of jail, and spend the rest of your life a free man" as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' sprawling Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act case against Chesebro, former President Donald Trump, and seventeen of their associates proceeds.

Chesebro is the author of a memo laying out a plan to send fraudulent slates of pro-Trump presidential electors to Washington following Trump's 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. In it, Chesebro suggests that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to reject Biden's electors from battleground states that Trump falsely insisted that he won.

"We have observed your ongoing travails in the criminal justice system at the federal and state level," wrote Katya Jestin, Marcus A.R. Childress and Caroline M. Darmody in the letter that was published by Just Security, a website that covers security and democracy.

"As experienced defense counsel, we write with serious concerns about your decision to proceed to trial in Georgia. Your current path represents a grave threat to your liberty. We urge you to reconsider for that purpose alone," the Just Security letter begins.

"We have watched as you were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia on August 14, thirteen days after being included as 'Co-Conspirator Five' in the federal indictment against former President Trump. We then watched as you pleaded not guilty in Fulton County, asserted your speedy trial rights under state law, filed an unsuccessful motion to sever your trial from that of co-defendant Sidney Powell, and most recently filed a motion to dismiss under the Supremacy Clause.

"We do not seek to weigh in on the merits of the individual Georgia charges pending against you. Instead, we are focused here on what the best legal advice would mean for someone in your position, and how to effectuate the optimal strategy."

Conceding that "we are not your lawyers" and that "nothing we write here is meant to suggest that you are not being represented ably by excellent counsel who are focused on your best interest," the three legal minds tell Chesebro, "we beseech you, think of one and only one thing: your liberty."

They continue, "As an appellate lawyer, you have probably not spent much time, or any time at all, inside a prison. But as seasoned defense counsel and former prosecutors, we have. Believe us when we tell you that prison is not where you want to spend any amount of time, much less a minimum of five years or the rest of your life."

They add, "You face criminal charges in the State of Georgia on seven counts. The state alleges that you conspired: to impersonate public officials by having impostors hold themselves out as qualified presidential electors; to forge and file a false document that purported to be a 'certificate' of Georgia’s 2020 electoral votes; and ultimately, to unlawfully change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

"The facts underlying such a conspiracy, if it indeed existed as alleged, could astonish all Americans, particularly the jurors, voters, and citizens of Georgia especially as you are an outsider who allegedly worked to disenfranchise members of their community."

Following a review of "the facts," the authors assert that "it appears that the prosecution in Fulton County, Georgia has a lot to work with. This means that, barring jury nullification, chances are you will be convicted. And, even if you really want to roll the dice with the jury, the federal case looms; that must be factored in here. Yours is a Damoclean situation."

Therefore, Chesebro's best course of action, the attorneys jointly conclude, is "to swallow hard, cooperate, stay out of jail, and spend the rest of your life a free man."

Former United States Labor Secretary Robert Reich warned in a Guardian opinion column on Wednesday that as autumn approaches, 2024 presidential election polls show a "too close for comfort" race between incumbent President Joe Biden and the Republican Party's quadrupedally-criminally indicted frontrunner, ex-President Donald Trump.

Reich begins with a recap of how he sees the GOP as working tirelessly to re-install Trump.

"This particular week after Labor Day also marks the start of a terrifyingly high-stakes ride for America – five months until the beginning of the primaries, eight until Donald Trump's trial for seeking to overturn the 2020 election, 10 until the Republican convention in which Trump is almost certain to be nominated, 14 until the presidential election of 2024," Reich writes. "All the while, Trump and House Republicans will be throwing up every conceivable distraction and roadblock – threatening to or actually closing the government, impeaching Joe Biden, and holding more hearings on 'woke capitalism, Hunter Biden, the alleged 'weaponization' of the justice department and the FBI."

Given the aforementioned, Reich continues, "At this point, the polls are too close for comfort. Tuesday's Wall Street Journalpoll shows Biden tied with Trump in a hypothetical general election (not factoring a third-party candidacy from No Labels or Cornel West), and bogged down with an anemic 39% approval rating. Some of this is tied to Biden's age, but some also seems to be the result of a remarkable unawareness of Biden's policies. By a slim margin, more Americans disapprove than approve of Biden's efforts to improve the nation's infrastructure, and more believe that Trump 'has a vision for the future' than they believe Biden does."

Reich urges citizens to become civilly engaged, and offers a list of recommendations for how Americans can protect their republic.

"Do everything within your power to ensure that Donald Trump is not re-elected president," Reich commands. "Do not succumb to the tempting anesthesia of complacency or cynicism," Reich suggests, adding, "Even if you cannot take much time out of your normal life for direct politics, you will need to organize, mobilize and energize your friends, colleagues and neighbors."

Reich also stresses the need to "counter lies with truth. When you hear someone repeating a Trump Republican lie, correct it. This will require that you prepare yourself with facts, logic, analysis and sources."

Hate, bigotry, and violence, Reich says, carry their own dangers that can only be overcome through democratic participation. That includes holding healthy debates with people who hold opposing viewpoints.

"Don't gripe, whine, wring your hands and kvetch with other progressives about how awful Trump and his Republican enablers are," Reich states. "Don't snivel over or criticize Biden and the Democrats for failing to communicate more effectively. None of this will get you anything except an upset stomach or worse."

Most importantly, Reich concludes, "Organize people who don't normally vote to vote for Biden. Mobilize get-out-the-vote efforts in your community. Get young people involved," because "the survival of American democracy during one of the greatest stress tests it has had to endure, organized by one of the worst demagogues in American history."