It's up to Democrats to defend our damaged democracy Republicans won't.

It’s not worth rehashing Trump’s primetime speech, a jumble of reheated conspiracy theories so far from newsworthy that multiple networks declined to air the event live. (Worth flagging, though, that Trump went off on those networks for doing so, musing in real time that they should lose their broadcast licenses.) The point of the whole charade was, of course, to create a pretext for Trump to eventually declare (read: invent) extraordinary powers granting himself control over our elections ahead of midterms. He likely views this move as a necessary first step to ultimately shoehorn through sweeping changes that Republicans have thus far been unsuccessful at implementing. Every Big Lie starts as a little one. Rather than trying to turn the tide (by, you know, governing), Trump is opting to rig the rules the game. On the one hand, it’s a damning indictment of our politics that we’ve gotten to this point. On the other hand, it’s a pathetic act of cowardice that betrays the president’s abject weakness. That’s not to say we shouldn’t take him seriously; if nothing else, the speech showed that Trump will stop at nothing to wield power, even power that he doesn’t have, to get what he wants. What we saw last night should be a blinking red light for Democrats to continue to fight this anti-democratic MAGA movement on every front. But it should also serve as a lesson for Democrats to recognize the opponent they're contending with. Trump will stop at nothing to win. They have to see this mentality, take it seriously, and mirror it, not for self-enrichment or vanity projects like he does, but to deliver for Americans. Enough blind deference to our norms and traditions and institutions. Enough symbolic victories and messaging votes. It’s time to wield power like they mean it. It’s time to wield power to secure meaningful, lasting wins. It’s time to wield power like democracy is at risk, because it is.