What should the Democrats run on?
Alerting every voter to what is in store for them if the radical right succeeds in its endgame to enchain American democracy.

Lurking behind the full-frontal assault by Donald Trump and his enablers lies a more far-reaching threat.
If the Republicans gain control of both Houses of Congress, expect a state-authorized #Constitutional #Convention to eviscerate core rights and protections most Americans hold dear.

Imagine living in a country without Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, the right to organize a union, civil rights enforcement, and clean air and water protections, let alone action to stop climate collapse.
The Constitutional Convention, in the plain language of the leading organizer for it, aims “to reverse 115 years of progressivism.”

That’s big talk, 115 years.
Think it can’t be done?
Although the convention push has been all but ignored by the commentariat and national Democratic leaders, it has powerhouse backing.

The #Koch network and other dark-money donors are generously funding it.
The corporation-underwritten American Legislative Exchange Council ( #ALEC ) has supplied “model legislation” and training to Republican state legislators. Endorsers include Mark #Meadows, Ron #DeSantis, Greg #Abbott, Sean #Hannity, and many more.

Convention of States Action ( #COS ), the 501c(4) organization leading the campaign, whose head was a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, has recruited and deployed volunteers to lobby their legislatures.
(It also offers training in “biblical citizenship.”)
COS has held three practice conventions with legislators from nearly every state.
The Heritage Foundation
—the 800-pound gorilla on the right
—recently signed on in “a game-changing report” that such a convention would be “a potent check on federal power” and is “a worthy cause.”

That endorsement is likely to drive even more cash to add to the over $70 million in IRS-traceable contributions that groups solely focused on convening such a gathering have garnered from 2012 to 2022, in findings of the Center for Media and Democracy.
That figure does not include contributions to #ALEC, which has promoted the convention since 2013;
its revenue hovers around $10 million annually.

Promoters have been methodically lining up authorizations from the states since the 2012 election showed them that most Americans reject the kind of society they seek, even Mitt Romney’s mild version.
So strategists concluded that the only way to permanently entrench minority rule by plutocrats and theocrats is to encase it in a dramatically altered Constitution.

They count on most of us remaining in the dark until it is too late to stop their scheme.
So far, that’s proved a good gamble. How many of us know that there are two routes to amending the Constitution—the usual one, and the nuclear option never yet tried?
Under Article V of the Constitution, Congress “shall call a convention for proposing amendments” when it receives applications from two-thirds of the states.
In reality, this is hard, because one party would need to control both houses of 34 state legislatures (or 33 plus unicameral Nebraska).
But ALEC has fabricated a claim built around the idea that enough states have made
past calls for a convention, some going back decades, for the idea to proceed.
It plans to use these outdated state resolutions to argue to the courts that they should force Congress to convene one.

But it gets worse.
If Republicans control Congress, they won’t have to bother with litigation, because it would be up to the majority in control to determine the validity of the applications
—and Article V lacks the guardrails to prevent this manipulation.

Seriously?
Yes, alas.
House Speaker #Mike #Johnson, who would be in a position to call it, is a longtime ally of COS.
https://newrepublic.com/article/178442/republicans-rewrite-constitution-radicalism-beyond-trump?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=0ebfdd1a-b649-4e29-8906-7cf27aa98108