Peter Nicholas: “Should the election drag on or should their candidate lose, Trump’s most aggressive supporters might consider [violence] a patriotic act to publicly contest what they see as a fraudulent election. That’s one scenario Brooks has been weighing through her work with the Transition Integrity Project, which includes dozens of former government officials and political strategists from both parties. After holding exercises to game out a potential post-election crisis, one conclusion the group reached was that ‘President Trump and his more fervent supporters have every incentive to try to turn peaceful pro-Biden (or anti-Trump) protests violent in order to generate evidence that a Democratic victory is tantamount to mob rule,’ as was described in a recent report. (Atlantic staff writer David Frum is a participant in the project.)”

“In interviews at the rally [in Latrobe, PA] yesterday afternoon, Trump supporters told me a Biden victory is so implausible that it could come about only through corrupt means. Latrobe sits in a county where Trump defeated Hillary Clinton four years ago by a 2–1 margin, and no one I spoke with thought Trump was in any real danger of losing this race either. Walker spoke of a potential ‘revolution’ were that to happen. ‘He ain’t got a prayer,’ Walker said of Biden. ‘He can only win with fraud. ‘That’s the only prayer, and that will cause the third and final revolution in this country,’ he added, citing the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. ‘Democrats have sealed their own fate. They’ve proven they’re not true Americans. They’re not for this country, and they’re not for our freedom. We’re just not going to take it any more. Trump is a godsend.'”