the anger and anxiety of Republicans to pressure the governor, SoS and election officials to give Trump what he wants. That is not possible in any other state, because all the other elections are over. The senate race is a huge deal.

He even got Purdue and Loeffler to call for the resignation of some top officials.

Or perhaps gross negligence. Extreme reckless disregard? Failing to discharge his duties as set forth in his oath of office leading to the deaths of (an individual) or whatever the actual total of dead Americans is?

American citizens who lost family members to COVID after a certain date would presumably have legal standing to sue him for his flagrantly incompetent handling of COVID. Especially considering that Feb 7 taped conversation between Trump and Woodward in which Trump admitted this virus was five times more lethal than the flu and airborne, and affected children too. He could never plead ignorance. At least it would put him on the spot to explain why he knowingly told so many lies and deterred people from wearing masks, and encouraged people to disregard CDC guidelines, etc...

is like a post Soviet-collapse wave, beginning mostly in Europe, encouraged by Russia, and involving several moving parts, like the Christian Right, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Putin. RW parties are ascending in Spain, Italy and Germany and have largely succeeded in Poland too. And it's spread to India and Brazil and the Philippines. Brexit is a byproduct of this same phenomenon. There's a growing disillusionment with democracy and no good defense against this playbook, which is about as old as Mussolini now. It's hard to understand why it is so difficult to combat, but part of the problem is that reality and truth, as such, are not important to the people who want something else.

Some great books on this:

Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder
Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
Unholy by Sarah Posner
Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart
Strongmen by Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett (about the Nazis but the author makes it relevant to what is happening now)

The next Trump won't be so careless.

That is why in spite of the fact a lot of people are not "shocked or surprised" by the latest phone call, we really should express our outrage. Soon all of these scandals will unfold behind closed doors again, where they will be harder to suss out. We should make use of every opportunity we have to sound the alarm about this threat to our democracy.

For every Trump there is a Viktor Orban or Silvio Berlusconi.

I really do think our situation is sinking in for more and more people, and it's heartening to see OPs like this and others on this topic.

'People who misspell "Martial Law."'

Just kidding.

Even if the crowd is smaller, I think the people who show will be angrier and more purposeful, and those stories about Jan 6 protesters swapping advice on Parler about how to smuggle guns into D.C. means I'll be paying closer attention than to the last gatherings. More militia/Proud Boys/The Base/Boogaloo Boyz is my guess. Definitely hope I'm wrong and it turns out to be nothing.

On the other hand, these guys blow a hell of a lot of smoke. You'll recall, we were going to have Civil War on November 4 regardless of who won, and that never happened. I went on one of their websites and watched some of them (Larry, Curly and Moe) trying to decide when to "GO", and none of them could make up their minds. They concluded, "We'll know when the time is right", like Tinkerbell would swoop down out of the heavens and wave her wand giving them to Go-Ahead to start Civil War. Deep down they might chicken out.

IMO we should behave like we're outraged anyway. We should raise f#cking hell.

If we weren't hearing outrage on CNN (like I'm hearing now) we'd also be beside ourselves. We should put our nihilism and complacency and tendencies to normalize anything he does aside and join in and raise hell over this even if we're not surprised. Because the alternative, of shrugging, rolling our eyes or saying nothing, is unthinkable in these circumstances.

Exactly. Trump has embedded loyalists deep inside our Intel agencies now. Those people have different agendas than Trump and some, I'd be willing to bet, are only too happy to help Russia continue to undermine our Democracy, just on principle (never mind the money, although I'm sure they wouldn't reject it).

It's so hard for Americans to wrap our minds around the idea that there are people in this country who would prefer another form of government to Democracy. Most of us were born into the Post-War period of relative peace. We saw the defeat and rejection of fascism, we saw the collapse of dictatorships, and we watched the collapse of the Soviet Union and believed Democracy's spread and stability were inevitable (I was one of them). But the big picture of history is different.

Kentuck, you're on a roll this morning!

That is why the party that once talked about exporting democracy is now making apologies and excuses for Russia, Hungary and Poland and saying we should be more like them -- countries that wouldn't have even permitted to join the EU or NATO had they been this way back when those organizations were formed. And why they are "okay" with Russia's overtures to expand its empire into Ukraine, Crimea, and perhaps beyond.

An authoritarian who believes what they believe, speaks glowingly and with nostalgia of a past that never existed, slowly turning a nation into a "Christian Nation," demonizing minorities, immigrants, non-Christian religions, GLBT, politicizes the court and gives basically unrestrained powers to the Executive to "make that country great again" (the way it used to be but actually never was in the first place).

Putting aside Trump for the moment (because he only thinks about the present moment and a few seconds into the future), the Republican Party has two modes:

When there's a Republican president: Look out for themselves and their high-end donors and feed the base (especially the Christian Nationalists).

When there's a Democratic president: Try to make the United States ungovernable so that people begin to question whether or not democracy works. That kind of blockade of governance is what made Trump possible. It is a playbook that seems to be working in Europe, and is primarily a Russian export that is catching on as far right parties begin to degrade (or have completely degraded, as in the cases of Hungary, Poland and some others--India, Brazil, Philippines) formerly functioning democracies.

I think the GOP is moving back into the second mode.

I've come to this conclusion after reading a few books on this subject, most recently Ezra Klein's book Why are we Polarized?, Timothy Snyder's book (all of them are incredible) The Road to Unfreedom, Benjamin Carter Witt's book The Death of Democracy (which is actually about the rise of the Nazis, but ever-so relevant) and Anne Applebaum's book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. There are some other great books on this too, but those come to mind this early in the morning.