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BJP MLA Sudip Roy Baraman spoke out against Tripura CM Biplab Deb. (Picture credit: PTI)

Two days ahead of Tripura civic polls, BJP MLA Sudip Roy Barman spoke out against chief minister Biplab Deb and said "there is no democracy in Tripura".

Sudip Barman said: "Law and order is the responsibility of the state government. There is no democracy in Tripura. Not a single statement from the home minister (Biplab Deb) that hooliganism won't be tolerated... what does he think of himself? His days are numbered, I can tell you."

The MLA added: "There's no shred of democracy in Tripura. It is being stifled. We don't care, which party we belong to. My duty as a BJP worker is to ensure democracy is restored. The people's voice is being heard... it is my duty and I will ensure that."

While speaking about the TMC delegation meeting, the home minister Barman said: "Home Minister Amit Shah met the Trinamool delegation on Monday and assured law and order will be ensured. What else do you want from BJP leadership?"

This violence, however, is giving Tripura and our party a bad name, added the BJP MLA.

Click here for IndiaToday.ins complete coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Originally posted here:
There's no democracy in Tripura: BJP MLA Sudip Barman ...

Photo: Getty Images/Andrey Denisyuk

WASHINGTON You may have missed a hugely important story recently because the media soft-pedaled it. But Congress has just taken a major step toward hand-cuffing the unchecked presidential abuse of power that was a hallmark of the Trump Presidency.

For four years and more, Donald Trump ran roughshod over the guardrails of our republic, inviting the Kremlin to interfere in our 2016 election; enriching himself by doing businesses with foreign governments; firing independent US government watchdogs; pardoning his jailed political lieutenants, even toying with pardoning himself; grabbing funds for his border wall that Congress had appropriated for other purposes; and repeatedly stonewalling Congressional oversight.

A rogue president, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. Others saw him as a Wannabe Monarch, whose disdain for the rule of law and brash flouting of the norms of democracy have now provoked the House to draft and to adopt a robust package of reforms aimed, as the Speaker told the House, at defending the rule of law, revitalizing our system of checks and balances and restoring our democratic institutions.

Five Republicans dared to break away from the Trump-driven House GOP caucus, to vote with 220 Democrats to pass the Protecting Our Democracy Act. The GOP break-aways included Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, John Katko of New York, Chris Smith and Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey, and Don Young of Alaska only one of whom (Katko) voted last January to impeach Trump.

Echoes of Watergate reforms

The bills principal architect and sponsor, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, casts the new reform package as an echo of Watergate Era restraints on the presidency enacted by Congress in the wake of President Nixons resignation in 1974 after being impeached for abuses of power.

Just as after Watergate Congress worked to enact reforms, so we must now examine the cracks in the Democratic foundation and address them, Schiff explained. He framed his bill, point by point, to match targeted legal restraints against specific Trump excesses during his presidential campaigns, his tenure in the White House, and the political activities of his staff.

Foreign interference and secret tax returns

In his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, Trump stubbornly refused to follow the pattern of presidential candidates in both parties since the 1970s of voluntarily releasing their tax returns. Trump insisted his returns must stay secret. So the Protecting Our Democracy Act requires all future candidates for president or vice president to disclose their income tax returns for the 10 most recent taxable years.

In the 2016 campaign, Trump called on Russian intelligence to hack Hillary Clintons emails, his son Donald Jr met with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary, and other campaign operatives opened contacts with Russian businessmen and alleged intelligence operatives. To combat such links, this new bill requires that a presidential candidate, family, and campaign organization must report all foreign contacts to the FBI within one week and the FBI must quickly investigate and report Congress.

To curb foreign interference in future elections, such as the Russian-promoted Wikileaks of Clinton and Democratic Party emails and social media posts that benefited Trump, the new legislation bars not only foreign donations to U.S. campaigns, not just money but any other thing of value, with stiff penalties for violations.

On the domestic side of campaigns, 13 high Trump officials including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway were formally found to have violated Hatch Act prohibitions against political campaigning, the new law strengthens enforcement of the Hatch Act with heavy fines and mandatory reports to Congress by the Special Counsel of the Executive Branch.

Follow the money

Perhaps the most unique aberration of the Trump Presidency was Trumps massive personal business operations while in the White House, his continued ownership of the Trump-Organizations many global properties including the Trump International Hotel in Washington which was widely used by foreign embassies and governments in what critics saw as currying favor with Trump by giving him profitable business at his hotel.

To cope with this problem, Schiffs bill seeks to plug a loophole in the Constitutions vaguely-defined ban against presidents accepting emoluments- payments or benefits from foreign countries, by extending the emoluments prohibition to include any profit, gain or advantage arising from commercial transactions.

On the domestic side, many in Congress were angered byTrumps diverting $14 billion in Pentagon funds intended for fighter jets, equipment, and military construction to his border wall project in defiance of Congressional votes and appropriations, and so the reform package reasserts the Congressional power of the purse and imposes new limits on presidential action.

Pardons, firings, subpoenas, and defiance

But the sharpest challenges to the Trump model are in the political arena, directed at Trumps more inflammatory political actions, from his pardons and firings to his glaring defiance of Congress. In this legislation, his political antagonists and critics have not only struck back at the Trump legacy but have moved to prevent a repeat performance either by Trump or another Trump-minded authoritarian.

In response to Trumps pardoning of convicted campaign aides Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, who in their legal battles shielded Trump personally, and in response to worries that Trump might try to pardon himself, the reform package puts Congress on record as flatly forbidding a presidential self-pardon and barring the use of a pardon, or the promise of a pardon, as a political bribe for a quid pro quo.

In reaction to Trumps purge of the independent-minded federal watchdogs, the Inspectors General (IGs) at the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence, and other agencies, who were probing the Trump administration, the new law offers legal protections from political reprisals by barring removal of IG watchdogs, except for cause.

To combat Trumps patented strategy of stonewall-and-delay when challenged by Congressional subpoenas, the reform bill institutes legal shortcuts immediate three-judge appeals court hearings and speedy procedures to give Congress leverage to enforce its subpoenas.

And now, with Trump facing several criminal investigations, the reform act includes a section tellingly titled, No President Is Above the Law. It moves to hold presidents permanently accountable for abuses of power and illegal actions by suspending the statute of limitations for any federal offense committed by a sitting president, either before or during his or her term of office

Now, its up to the Senate and voters like you

Theres more to this bill, but you can see already that its an impressive and urgently needed menu of reforms born out of the painful personal experience of Adam Schiff, who led the first unsuccessful attempt to impeach and convict Trump of abuse of power and violating his Oath to the Constitution.

The Protecting Our Democracy Act now goes to the Senate where it can be strangled in its crib by Republican party-line opposition if thats what Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, orders.

But seven Republican senators from Alaska, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Utah voted last January to convict Donald Trump of what Maines Susan Collins called a clear abuse of power. McConnell himself later held Trump practically and morally responsible for the Jan 6 mob attack on Congress. From that terrifying day, McConnell knows personally the mortal danger posed by a Chief Executive who is unconstrained by the rule of the law.

My hunch is that if enough voters, especially those in swing states, tell their senators now that We the People consider it imperative to bolster the guardrails that protect our Constitutional order, the U.S, Senate might just surprise us and vote in favor of Protecting Our Democracy.

Hedrick Smith is the former New York Times Washington, DC bureau chief. This article originally appeared on Smiths own website, Reclaim the American Dream.

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Legendary journalist: This is how how we preserve and protect our democracy - ncpolicywatch.com

The much-touted Summit for Democracy hosted by US President Joe Biden has come and gone without generating much heat. For the American leader, making democracy globally attractive has been a priority, and in that spirit, this summit was aimed at generating a greater sense of solidarity among fellow democracies. This is an age when the health of democracies across the world is a genuine cause for concern and the rise of China has made the debate on the efficacy of political institutions even more germane to contemporary shifts in global narratives. The intellectual consensus of the past that democracy is the best option available no longer seems secure.

For Biden, it has been an article of faith to showcase the effectiveness of democracy, and he campaigned on this agenda, keen to project it both at home and abroad at a time when the credibility of American democracy has been challenged, unlike any other time in its history. He, therefore, rallied world leaders to work with him to bolster democratic institutions amid the march of authoritarian systems like Chinas and Russias as well as a backward slide of democracy around the globe. In the context of the mob attack on the Capitol complex in Washington DC on 6 January this year, he also turned the spotlight inwards by arguing that here in the United States we know as well as anyone that renewing our democracy and strengthening our democratic institutions requires constant effort."

The summit saw the participation of more than 100 leaders, who underlined growing challenges to global democratic aspirations such as corruption, socio-economic inequalities, disinformation and the growing role of Big Tech. There was a joint pushback from China and Russia, which lambasted the Biden administration as exhibiting a Cold-War mentality" that would stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world." The Chinese Communist Party went even further and hosted its own International Forum on Democracy, where it claimed that China is a true democracy that works" as it integrates process-oriented democracy with results-oriented democracy, procedural democracy with substantive democracy, direct democracy with indirect democracy, and peoples democracy with the will of the state." It released a white paper titled China: Democracy That Works, which enunciated that there is no fixed model of democracy; it manifests itself in many forms. Assessing the myriad political systems in the world against a single yardstick and examining diverse political structures in monochrome are in themselves undemocratic."

It is ironical that this contestation of the very meaning of democracy is happening two decades after Chinas accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) In December 2001 that has had a transformative impact on the global economy as well as global polity. That was the time when Francis Fukuyamas end of history" narrative still resonated with policymakers, exemplified in the views of former US President Bill Clinton when he suggested that importing one of democracys most cherished values, economic freedom", would eventually bring political changes in China. That political freedom would smoothly flow from economic liberalization was the consensus across the political and academic world back then.

But even as China used the opportunities it got to emerge over the past two decades as the worlds largest economy in purchasing power parity terms, the second largest at market exchange rates, and the worlds largest trading nation, democracy was nowhere to be found. Significantly, China started using its global economic clout for geopolitical ends, as reflected in its trade coercion of Australia since 2020 and more recently Lithuania. American policymakers today are left complaining that Beijing is pursuing a state-centred economic model that tilts the field by deploying policies that disadvantage US businesses and other foreign companies in sectors deemed strategic."

The West has been forced to reckon with the challenge China poses to the global economic and political order after decades of ignoring a fundamental contradiction in its approach. The very global economic system that propelled China to the global hierarchys top has been undercut by Beijing through its market distortion and coercive trade practices. The US is beginning to challenge this more frontally than ever before. In a recent intervention, the US undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, Jose W. Fernandez, exhorted the US business community to not see themselves as mere bystanders in the US-China strategic engagement, but be mindful how your activities can affect US National Security and the fundamental values we hold dear."

This is an important US shift away from viewing politics as subservient to economic interests towards a reassertion of the primacy of political objectives. This brings us back to the fundamental issue of democracy and reasons for the emergence of new geopolitical fault-lines. Indias role as the worlds largest democracy is critical in this discourse, and as Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted in his remarks at the summit, the India story has one clear message to the worldthat democracy can deliver; that democracy has delivered and that democracy will continue to deliver."

Every democracy is a work in progress and responding to democratic aspirations in a society riven with multiple socio-economic fault-lines is a huge challenge, but India has repeatedly proven naysayers wrong on the countrys democratic consolidation. And Indias economic rise within a democratic set-up is itself a challenge to Chinese propaganda on an authoritarian models efficacy. While the fragility of democracies in the West has been apparent to the whole world, Indian democracy has remained resilient.

For the West, an important corrective was in order, but, significantly for China, the summit sent out a message that resilient Indian democracy could take its political claims apart. If the Chinese Communist Party can tom-tom its non-existent democratic credentials, India should be far more vocal about its genuine democratic accomplishments without being despondent about challenges.

Harsh V. Pant is professor of international relations, Kings College London

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What constitutes democracy is for actual democracies to define - Mint

Coups in Chad, Sudan, Guinea and Mali. Damaging and destabilising civil conflict in Ethiopia and Mozambique. Growing criminality and insecurity in Nigeria. The continuation of the Sahel crisis, which is impacting political violence in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Flawed elections in Chad, Ethiopia, Uganda and even one of the continents former democratic leading lights, Benin.

The outbreak of violence and looting that followed ex-President Jacob Zumas arrest in South Africa, described by some as the countrys darkest hour since the end of apartheid. A drawn out political crisis in eSwatini, where the continents last absolute monarchy is resorting to increasingly desperate and brutal strategies to retain power. And, most recently, the return of long term dictator Yahya Jammehs political party to government if via a coalition in Gambia.

Off the back of these developments it would be easy to paint 2021 as the year that the dream of democracy died in Africa especially as it was not a one off. Afropessimists and those who argue that democracy is completely unsuited to the African context certainly interpreted the combination of political instability and rising authoritarianism in this way. But there is another story to tell about Africa in 2021 which focusses less on democratic decline and more on democratic resilience.

Despite growing public concern about the direction of political travel, there is no evidence of widespread support for one-party states, which have often been claimed to represent a form of government more suited to African societies. Instead, citizens dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working has led to stronger demands for accountable and representative government. In turn, this helps to explain why 2021 saw opposition victories in Sao Tome and Principe and Zambia, as well as protests against corrupt and abusive rule in a wide range of countries from Benin to Zimbabwe.

Democracy is under threat, but has also proved to be remarkable resilient. This is not simply because it is supported by Western governments from thousands of miles away. A much more important factor is that it is deeply rooted in the hopes and aspirations that people have for their own countries.

It is true that the poor performance of many governments over the last few years, and consistent controversy over electoral manipulation, has led to falling public satisfaction with how democracy is working. The Afrobarometer has just dropped the results of its latest round of nationally representative surveys conducted in 34 countries between 1999 and 2021. As ever, their data which is freely available here has an amazing amount to tell us about public attitudes and perceptions. The latest findings reveal that a majority of citizens are dissatisfied with democracy in 26 (76%) of the 34 countries included in the sample. In some countries, satisfaction is so low that it is almost non-existent: just 11% in Gabon and 17% in Angola.

Along with the fact that some of the coups that took place over the last two years were celebrated in the streets, it would be easy to interpret this as evidence that people have given up on democracy and want authoritarian strong men who can deliver order and discipline. But a closer look at these coups and the Afrobarometer suggests a very different conclusion.

Many of those who initially celebrated coups in Guinea and Mali did so because they removed leaders who had themselves undermined democracy. In Guinea, President Alpha Conde has manufactured an unpopular third term in office. In Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keta was widely accused of having both delayed and manipulated the March 2020 legislative elections.

Strong public support for democracy (77% in Guinea, 62% in Mali) was one reason that the juntas now in power felt the need to justify their interventions, at least in part, on the basis of the need to restore democratic government.

High levels of popular support for democracy are also evident elsewhere. According to the Afrobarometer, more than 70% of citizens prefer democracy to any other form of government in 20 (58%) out of 34 countries. Sceptics sometimes respond to the findings of the Afrobarometer by arguing that people may not really know what democracy means, or that support for democracy doesnt imply a desire to impose checks and balances on leaders.

The latest Afrobarometer data shows that this is not true. Instead, at a time of democratic crisis there is growing support for the principle of political accountability. The proportion of citizens agreeing that governments should be held accountable even if that means it makes decisions more slowly increased from 52% to 62% between 2011 and 2021. In line with this, public support for the president always obeying the courts, even if s/he thinks they are wrong increased from 67% to 77%.

Perhaps the best evidence of the impressive resilience of democratic norms and values is the fact that support for democracy is often highest in countries where it is under threat. In 2021, this includes Benin (81%), Ethiopia (90%), Zimbabwe (78%) and Zambia (84%) where the survey was conducted before authoritarian President Edgar Lungu was defeated at the ballot box.

In other words, dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working doesnt indicate that people have given up on it, but rather that they want more. In countries such as Zimbabwe, low satisfaction with democracy (41%) has driven a rejection not of democratic government but rather of the authoritarianism that people experience on a daily basis. Fully 84% of Zimbabweans reject military rule, as do 87% of Ugandans and 89% of Kenyans and an average of 74% of the tens of thousands of people interviewed by the Afrobarometer.

It is this democratic resilience that helps to explain some of the bright spots in 2021.

In Zambia, citizens ignored threats, a bias media and bribery to boot out President Edgar Lungus increasingly authoritarian government even though the election was far from free and fair. In Sao Tome and Principe, public desire for change resulted in another victory for the opposition.

In Nigeria, protestors organized memorials online and in person to commemorate those who died in the #endSARS protests of 2020 and to demand justice for fallen comrades. In eSwatini, protestors continue to risk arrest, torture and death despite the great odds stacked against them. And in Sudan, the coup of October 2021 was contested by a remarkable citizen uprising in which thousands of people once again risked their lives to demand civilian and democratic government.

Public support alone is not, of course, enough to protect or advance democracy, and it is clear that the institutions designed to safeguard democratic principles have eroded in many countries. Zimbabweans do not want to live under a strong man but they have little choice in the mater at present.

What it does mean, however, is that the more governments abuse democratic norms and values, the harder they will find it to legitimise and hence sustain their rule. The juntas have taken recently taken power in countries like Guinea, Mali and Sudan will soon learn this lesson to their cost if they renege on their promise to restore democratic rule.

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Africa in 2021: The end of democracy? - The Africa Report

Yes, Joe Biden not only can but must have a second inauguration, or we may not have those for a while. Photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images

The Democratic Party has a big strategic problem looking ahead to the next two election cycles. The 2022 midterms are stacked decisively against Democrats, and the survival of the current governing trifecta in Washington is extremely unlikely. So while what happens between now and next November could affect the extent of Democratic defeats (with Senate control being pretty much a toss-up), the productive legislative phase of the Biden administration will soon be over. That means Democrats from Joe Biden on down need already to be thinking about 2024, when the stakes include, in addition to the strong possibility of a Republican governing trifecta, the continuation of the United States as a fully functioning democracy.

If Donald Trump himself runs and wins in 2024, American will enter a terrifying period in which the country will be governed by a man with zero respect for basic democratic norms and who has suffered zero consequences for his past misconduct. Even if Trump does not run, he has already corrupted the GOP and destroyed its commitment to every past notion of faith in democratic institutions to a degree that any foreseeable successor as presidential nominee will be a seasoned Big Liar and election subverter promoting an agenda that includes radical reductions in the right to vote and to control ones own bodily integrity (assuming, as we should, that the Supreme Court is on the brink of reversing Roe v. Wade).

But here is the core problem: Voters dont much care about the threat to democracy, as CNN explains:

Attempts tomeddle with the certificationof the Electoral College count and thepartisan takeoversof the voting infrastructure dont seem to be front of mind for an electorate drained by nearly two years of pandemic living and a creeping sense ofeconomic panic, and that worries a range of Democratic governors gearing up for campaigns who gathered in New Orleans this weekend for grim meetings about their 2022 electoral prospects.

Indeed, some Democratic governors think of saving democracy as a boring process issue compared to titanic concerns like holding down gasoline prices:

Most everyday people are worried about their kids getting a good education, worried about getting paid for, making sure their roads are fixed, being able to connect to high-speed internet, [North Carolina Governor Roy] Cooper said. The political process issues Ive never been a real fan of making them a central part of messaging.

So perhaps this means Democrats must reduce gasoline prices to save democracy, or at least make it clear they care a lot more about reducing gasoline prices than about boring or inexplicable stuff like election laws.

But because Democratic elites do understand what could happen if Trump becomes president in 2024 by hook or by crook, on an explicit platform of I never lose, they really need to begin right now developing a three-year plan for avoiding that calamity. Here are some factors that might shape such a plan:

In the ongoing debate as to whether Democrats should vindicate the values and interests of their core constituencies, or instead to pander as aggressively as possible to broad public opinion, I have typically been in the former camp. But in the emergency conditions Democrats and the country face between now and 2024, they need all the public support they can muster lest by 2025 they have no power and perhaps even no freedom to pursue any sort of agenda. So popularism, the identification of the Donkey Party with what the public wants, if it does not actively contradict core principles, is a practical necessity. Since changing perceptions of political parties takes a while, it should begin right now with the final touches being placed on Bidens Build Back Better legislation, to the extent Joe Manchin allows it. Certainly, any version of BBB that clearly and conspicuously helps lower-to-middle-class families meet concrete costs of living like child care, housing, energy costs, or just the cost of raising kids would move in the right direction.

While popularism may well mitigate Democratic losses in 2022, its no time for nave hopes that it or anything other than a sudden end to COVID-19 and a big inflation-free economic boom with a big backlash to Supreme Court extremism on abortion added in could make 2022 the third midterm since FDRs first term in which the presidents party gained House seats. What it might do is to strengthen the party going into the far more consequential election of 2024 while improving conditions in the country as perceived by persuadable voters. If Democrats actually can give middle-class voters confidence they can better deal with or better yet, avoid the inflation that has long been poisonous for progressive politics, then said voters may be more open to those boring process issues like maintaining a functioning constitutional democracy.

As Bill Clinton showed in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2012, presidents can bounce back from midterm losses even midterm disasters to win second terms. But that means beginning to strengthen the presidents popularity now.

National-political-party leaders naturally want to spread resources around as much as possible to satisfy hungry little birdy mouths. And leaders engaged in specific electoral venues are going to focus on greasing the squeakiest wheels in their worlds. Thus even if House Democrats and their donors know the odds of hanging onto the House are 5 percent, the marginal seats that will determine control are likely to get the greatest attention, and the same is true of those involved in Senate, gubernatorial, and state-legislative races.

That needs to be replaced in the emergency conditions of 2022 by a party-wide strategy for focusing on 2024 general-election battlegrounds, particularly those where power over voting rules and election administration are at stake in the midterms. To be upfront about it, the partisan affiliation of the secretary of state in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada and of the governor of those states plus Pennsylvania (where the secretary of state is a gubernatorial appointee) could have a large bearing on Trumps election coup opportunities. So too with the partisan control of legislatures, Trumps favored vehicle for choosing electors no matter what voters want. It certainly matters to Democrats locally whether they control similar offices in clearly red or blue states. But from a national party point of view at this moment in history, it just doesnt matter whether the governor of Massachusetts, Illinois, or dare I say it? New York is a Democrat or a Republican. Maintaining control of the commanding heights of the rules governing the 2024 elections and the administration of the results to provide for a neutral playing ground friendly to voters is the best way to ensure that it is not our last free presidential election for a good while.

Yes, many voters are bored or confused by laws governing voting and elections. For that matter, the third of the electorate composed of base Republican voters is all but convinced that Trumps electoral coup preparations are the only way to save democracy from Democrats who believe in such nefarious schemes as making it easier to register to vote and to vote by mail or in person on pre-election Sundays (often used by Black churches to get souls to the polls). Scratch a conservative concerned about election fraud and you will usually find someone who doesnt really believe those people should hold votes equal to their own).

So campaigning strictly on saving democracy wont work among those who might be willing to tolerate a little fascism if its lubricated by cheaper petroleum products. But not talking about the threat to democracy at all is simply self-destructive. And as Politico Playbook notes in defense of its own relatively sparse coverage of the GOPs descent into authoritarianism, Democratic leaders seem to be deferring too much to the polls showing voters are indifferent:

IfDemocraticcandidates arent talking about Americas anti-democratic movement, and ifPresidentJoe Biden,SpeakerNancy Pelosiand Senate Majority LeaderChuck Schumerarent doing it every day in Washington, then the coverage will reflect that. That is not a defense of the political-media ecosystem but just a description of it.

This isnt just a matter of raising the visibility of the threat to democracy generally. The prospect of a return to office in 2024 by an openly authoritarian and ever-more-extremist Trump is a sure-fire energizer for the Democratic base in 2024, whether or not it is or can be in the 2022 midterms. A Democratic Party pursuing swing-voter-pleasing popularism needs a save democracy warning to get its own most reliable voters to the polls. It helps that no exaggeration is necessary, and that Republican issue extremism as on abortion is also increasingly in play. The Americans most likely to face the personal risk of losing their rights or their livelihoods in an authoritarian Trump Restoration need to hear alarms early and often.

I speak of a three-year plan in part because three years from today presidential electors will cast ballots in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. There is no question Team Trump has a game plan for controlling that process whether or not Trump wins the popular vote in sufficient states to win an electoral-vote majority legitimately despite what might well be a third-straight national-popular-vote defeat. There is also no question that the Republican Party has determined for the moment at least not to stand in the way of MAGA preparations for a coup if it needs one. Sure, Democrats could get lucky and the threat might recede again. Or perhaps they could accidentally save democracy by simply taking the steps needed to restore Joe Bidens popularity (though Biden was pretty popular when Trump nearly stole the presidency last time around). Either way, its time to get started.

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Democrats Need a Three-Year Plan to Save Democracy - New York Magazine