This is not even real… a group of retired admirals, ex-USAID bureaucrats and professional protest organizers got caught on their own recordings working out the conditions under which they get to declare the government of the United States illegitimate, and somehow we are supposed to believe they are the ones protecting democracy. Here is what @DataRepublican put out in Part 2 of the Democracy Files. The videos come from a group called Renew to Thrive, with Danielle Reiff and Paul Zeitz in key roles, and it sits inside a much bigger umbrella called the United Democracy Alliance, which she describes as the hush-hush control room for groups like 50501 and Indivisible, deciding when protests get deployed, the timelines and how to respond. National Security Leaders for America, 1,600 former military, intelligence and diplomatic officials led by retired Rear Admiral Michael E. Smith, is credited with operationalizing the whole thing. On tape they lay out a list of "redlines," and invoking the Insurrection Act against "peaceful" protesters is one of the most discussed… and as she lays it out, they shopped the idea around to governors who don't even have to sign anything, all a governor has to do is refuse federal troops and let the network do the rest. Make no mistake about who Mike Smith is. His own organization's bio says he founded and led National Security Leaders for Biden, more than 1,100 members with an endorsement letter signed by 780 of them, and now he runs a "non partisan" group that just cares so deeply about the oath. But hey… I am sure it is totally nonpartisan this time. And the very same morning the Washington Post runs a story about a small group of current and former Defense Department officials quietly advising governors, election officials and lawmakers in 10 states on how to prepare for the Trump administration "interfering" in the midterms, rehearsing what to do if a federal agent asks for access to ballots or machines. Different names, same message… the elected federal government is the threat, and the people who run the elections are the ones who need protecting from it. Let me put it to you like this. They are building the excuse before the event even happens. They coordinate the protests, they decide in advance which government response crosses their line, and then they hold that response up as proof the whole government is illegitimate and the governors should take over. How exactly is that defending the Constitution? If a room full of retired conservative officers got caught on tape role playing how to declare a Democrat president illegitimate, the FBI would be knocking on doors before the coffee got cold and every network in the country would run it wall to wall. I am angry about this, and I think most of you are not angry enough. These people swore an oath to the Constitution, not to a party, and they are treating the legitimacy of an elected government like a privilege they get to revoke the minute the voters pick somebody they don't like. As DataRepublican puts it, almost any effective pushback against their NGOs counts as illegitimate in their book. Where is the outrage from the people who spent five years lecturing you about threats to democracy? Admiral Smith, Ms. Reiff, Dr. Zeitz… release every recording in full and explain to the American people, under oath, exactly what you were planning for the day after.