Will September 23, 2020 go down as the day Democracy died in the United States? Yesterday Donald Trump made it clear he would not commit to a peaceful transition of power. Dartmouth professor Brendan Nyhan declared this a “democratic emergency,” telling MSNBC (watch above):

“This is straight out of the textbooks of how countries slide out of democracy and into authoritarianism. The peaceful transfer of power is the core of democracy. We depend on losers acquiescing, stepping down and recognizing their defeat, that is the core of democracy itself. Donald Trump has told us what he would do under those circumstances, the question is what will his allies do. This is a time for choosing, for every person of good faith in either party to decide whether they are for democracy or not.”

We are now hearing from two Republican senators. The first to speak out was Mitt Romney (R-UT).

And this morning Senator Marco Rubio wrote this on Twitter.

And now the Senate Majority has issued this statement.

And just a couple members from the House of Representatives are sharing their thoughts.

While a handful of GOP politicians are speaking out, Josh Marshall from the Talking Points Memo asks, “what are you going to do about it?”

And Former Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro writes, “In one day, Trump refused a peaceful transition of power and urged the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice to hand him an election if the results are contested. This is fascism, alive and well in the Republican Party.”