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cnn.com/full circle or watch it on the cnn app at any time on demand. the news continues with jim acosta and "democracy in peril." thank you very much. i'm jim acosta, and this is democracy in peril. tonight as we continue our series, we have to consider this very serious possibility. >> we are going to take back america. this is so important. [ cheers and applause ] and in 2024, we are going to take back the white house. >> now, despite all of the lies donald trump tells, this could actually come true. remember 2015 and that escalator ride into all of our lives. a lot of people didn't take him seriously before that. there was a lot of disbelief he would actually follow through on his bluster of running the first time. so this time around, we might want to believe him. we have no reason not to believe he's running again, which means the nation would be facing the nightmare scenario of a wannabe

dictator who incited a violent insurrection in which people died, attempting to regain the highest office in the land. imagine the violent thugs who hung trump flags on the capitol on that terrible day wearing trump hats and t-shirts after running loose inside the halls of congress. imagine those thugs carrying that man back into power, cheering him on at the next inaugural parade just three years from now. please don't tell me that can't happen again because you know it could. but none of that is a disqualifier for most of his party and congress. even lindsey enough is enough graham is back on the trump train after a brief -- and i mean brief -- moment of clarity on january 6th. >> can we move forward without president trump? the answer is no. >> and that's from someone who once called trump unfit for office and a race-baiting, xenophobic bigot. 147 republicans voted to overturn the election to help

keep trump in power because of his power over them, because he owns them. they know he's not going anywhere anytime soon. they're not going to cross trump when he still commands a vast network of right-wing propagandists, people like lou dobbs, the same dobbs who was famously fired by trump state tv, fox, a day after he have the network were sued by smartmatic for spreading lies. >> we're trying to get to the truth. i was demanding investigations throughout. there were so many irregularities, so many anomalies as they're called, so many bizarre instances where it looked like someone was committing fraud because otherwise, why would they put cardboard over windows to keep prying eyes away? >> they accumulate thousands of votes, and they just dump 'em. it's such a phony deal. this whole thing with the ballots, you know, with the mail-in ballots.

>> right. >> it's a terrible, terrible thing. >> you know what's terrible? that. he knows he lost. he knew before the election he might lose. that's why he planted the seeds of the big lie early on and created this alternate reality. and now his supporters have taken refuge in that reality all because of the real possibility the lord of the lies could run again. and if he does and wins or tries to steal it from the voters, all bets are off. as one trump adviser once told me, if trump gets another term in office, he will be even worse. and don't take it from me. take it from his former press secretary. >> if he gets into office, he doesn't run for re-election again. he'll be able to do whatever he wants, and we all know there's going to be retribution. there's going to be revenge. if people think that the people in that trump white house were bad perhaps, i have a feeling the 1/6 crowd might be working in the white house in 2024.

>> believe it. joining us now for more context on the ongoing impact of the big lie is ruth ben-ghiat, a professor of history at nyu and author of "strong men: mussolini to the present." ruth, great to see you. thanks so much and thanks for all of your expertise on this subject. why is it so important for trump, do you think, that he be seen at least for now as the only real republican contender for 2024? >> because he's invested a huge amount of time and effort creating his authoritarian leader cult and imposing that on the gop to make them do his bidding, and he's been highly successful. and when he was voted out, some people said, oh, his cult will go away now. and i said, no, no, it's not because he will be thinking about coming back. in fact, it's been very interesting. what the big lie did, very smart

on his part, meant that his supporters never had to reckon with the fact that he was defeated. so they didn't turn the page. he kept them loyal to him through the big lie. and this is -- this is a typical autocratic move. one of the reasons trump loves viktor orban so much, identifies with him, the head of hungary, is that orban was voted out and then he spent all this time figuring out how to come back and stay there. >> wow, which is something we could see repeat itself here in this country. you see all of these right-wing cheerleaders over on fox like tucker carlson almost begging for it to happen. ruth, how is it that a defeated president who lost the popular vote by a greater margin than any other president retains this power over his party the way one does? is it because he's invented this fantasy world and he's got them all trapped in there? >> what he did is what so many

strongmen in the past have done, he scanned the political marketplace, and he saw an opening in creating a kind of big tent for all the malcontents, all the extremists, and allowing the gop to partner with him to realize this kind of fantasy built on lies and, you know, white christian utopia because both of them know that the gop, you know, can't win the popular vote. it needs to use trickery to have minority rule because it won't accept what we are in america, which is a multiracial democracy, something to be proud of. instead, it creates this universe full of, you know, fantasies and lies. and so donald trump, you know, they use each other. this is what happens with autocrats and their parties. it's like a mutual using. and one of the rules is once the

party is domesticated, they stick with him to the bitter end, through impeachment, through negligence like pandemic mismanagement. it's quite extraordinary, but it's completely backed up by history. >> and they will stick to his alternate universe, his alternate reality in pursuit of those common goals. you know, ruth, even if trump doesn't run -- and i think there's a real possibility he will run. i think he just -- he can't stand the fact that he got beat, and he doesn't want to spend the remaining days of his life being a loser. how likely is it that the threat of authoritarianism inside the republican party remains? could they find a smarter trump, a more crafty trump who doesn't make the same, you know, bungling mistakes that trump did? >> yeah. well, a lot of people are auditioning. i've got my eye on ron desantis, who, you know, we can laugh at him copying trump's hand gestures. i won't demonstrate.

but he's in florida, you know, creating his own little autocracy. it's like all these people are rehearsing for their parts in the autocracy to come. and there's tucker carlson, minister of information, and this is very typical. what we're living through now is the gop is constructing an authoritarian political culture to support illiberal rule. a lot of the stuff going on, look how many people who were involved in january 6th are running for office. that's because you need extremists in government and in the party. and then you have these, you know, mini trumps who have learned the lessons of trump and want to surpass him, like desantis. so all of these things are legible, are understandable through the, you know, making an authoritarian culture for the future. >> and based on all of it, i mean should we even view the republican party as the republican party, you know, of just the last ten years?

i mean has it changed so much that it really -- it should be called something else? i've been calling it the trump-owned party, the t.o.p. but it's not really the republican party you and i grew up with. >> no. it was already on its way to becoming an extremist party and losing some of the values of bipartisanism. and then trump arrived to kind of soup it up and accelerate it, and they were ready. and this is where, you know, it's this meeting of circumstance and charismatic leader, and the party has completely transformed itself. but the thing is that trump put it under a kind of authoritarian discipline that you see really in regimes. and so think about the unified messaging. think about how he punished people who voted for his impeachment. you know, they had to go buy body armor. all of these -- this is like authoritarian dynamics, and trump was very successful in

doing this. and so the republican party is now a far-right party, an authoritarian party, which is not invested or interested anymore in the practice of democracy. >> all right. ruth ben-ghiat, thank you so much for those insights. we appreciate it. always great to talk to you. thanks for your time. and if trump does run in 2024, there could be very different people in positions of power to oversee elections and key battleground states. people who might actually be willing to find him the votes next time, like this. >> i believe it was stolen, yeah. >> there you go. much more in a special report when "democracy in peril" continues. orrr... you could use slack. and work faster with everyone you work with, together in one place. slack. where the future works.

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163 republicans who have embraced trump's lies are running for statewide office. of those, 18 are gunning for the top election post, secretary of state. the idea that conspiracy theorists could soon run our elections isn't too farfetched when you consider how voters are receiving them. cnn's kyung lah shows us just how these candidates are gaining traction. >> good morning! we thought we'd catch up with you here. >> reporter: for someone running to be nevada's chief elections officer, republican secretary of state candidate jim marchant doesn't seem to want to say much. >> what are you here talking about? >> election integrity. >> and what do you mean by that? >> election integrity. >> reporter: marchant doesn't want to talk to the press. >> so anyway, thank you. >> reporter: but the owner of the sandwich shop invited us into the public section of the restaurant. where we heard behind this great curtain marchant tell the crowd the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

>> reporter: eliminate all voting machines, early voting, and mail-in ballots and get new paper ballots from an unknown company somewhere in texas, he says. >> reporter: after his speech, we asked him again about nevada's 2020 election results. trump lost the battleground state by more than 30,000 votes. >> i believe it was stolen, yeah. i mean i believe that there were enough irregularities that we need to do an audit. >> 30,000 irregularities? >> sure. i think more. do an audit. why won't you do an audit? >> because there's no evidence to -- >> oh, there's plenty of evidence. >> reporter: there is not plenty

of evidence. four separate nevada court cases were dismissed due to lack of evidence. and the current secretary of state, a republican, investigated and dismissed dozens of claims of fraud. with the midterms and 2024 on the horizon -- >> we formed a coalition may 1st, and these are the candidates here, patriots. >> reporter: marchant says this group of big lie believers have organized to run in secretary of state races, hoping to administer elections in key battleground states. this is a qanon convention last fall. onstage with marchant in his trademark white cowboy hat is mark finchem. >> we know it, and they know it. donald trump won. >> reporter: trump has endorsed finchem to be arizona's secretary of state. finchem believes the will of arizona voters should have been ignored in 2020. >> with all the evidence we have, the arizona election

should be decertified. >> you're next, secretary of state. >> reporter: another trump-backed candidate for secretary of state jody hice. >> the results remain unchanged. >> reporter: is charging the current republican in office in georgia. >> jody is running against one of the worst secretary of states in america. >> reporter: raffensperger denied this outrageous trump request. >> i just want to find 11,780 votes. >> reporter: and then there's michigan's christina karamo. >> i want to thank jim marchant for putting the coalition together. our campaign has some really great news. we just got endorsed by president trump. >> reporter: she's posted lie after lie about michigan's elections. >> it's not right. there are hundreds of thousands of votes and we know they're illegal. >> reporter: we've been trying to reach christina karamo for several days, and she has not replied to our request for an

interview. on her campaign website, there is no address for a campaign office. we did get an address for her house. so since it's her house, we're not going to go up there with a camera or a microphone. but i am going to knock on the door and see if she will consent to an interview. so i talked to karamo's father. at least that's how he identified himself. and he said, leave your business card. we'll see if she calls you back. a few days later, she posted my business card on her facebook page, writing, i will not be intimidated. but she never did call me. >> we are seeing a coordinated effort by extreme republicans to undo american democracy. and part of that effort is to win these swing states, secretary of state seats. >> reporter: colorado secretary of state jenna griswold is chair of the association of secretary of states of. democrats raised $4.5 million last year for secretaries of state races, a record for the group. >> the stakes could not be

higher. we are at code red for american democracy, and secretaries of state are one of the last stop gates to safeguarding democracy. >> reporter: but the true battle will happen in the primaries, says republican election lawyer ben ginsburg, who hopes his party will flush out the extremists. >> please pay attention to these races. they matter about whether your vote counts. as a republican, it worries me a great deal for the future of popular credibility in elections that the role of secretary of state, a nonpartisan election role where you have to call balls and strikes, is becoming so politicized. >> reporter: back in reno, nevada, at jim marchant's campaign stop, the lies sink in. >> i believe in his efforts, and i totally support him. >> yes, there was fraud, 100%. >> i just want to understand. in 2020, because a republican secretary of state was in office, you still think that there was fraud? >> oh, yes.

oh, yeah. >> is it just having a republican secretary of state or a trump-backed secretary of state? >> a trump-backed, yeah, because we have a lot of rinos. >> reporter: and marchant is ready to put his plan in place. what would you do as secretary of state that would change things? >> um, i'd do the job that the secretary is supposed to do, secretary of state is supposed to do. >> which is what? >> ensure that we have a fair and transparent election. >> and you do not believe that's currently what's happened? >> i think there are enough anomalies that warrant an investigation. >> and kyung lah joins me now. kyung, incredible piece. great work as always. i've got to ask you, do you think any of these candidates have a shot at winning? i mean would they actually go through with overturning election results that clearly show perhaps a democrat won instead of a trump-backed republican? >> well, there are some

containers, some guardrails on what a secretary of state does, and it has to go through the legislature. but certainly there could be some significant issues if any of them do become the chief election administrator in a battleground state where there's so much attention. now, as far as whether any of them actually stand a chance, it's early, but we do have some tea leaves at least in the fund-raising numbers. i want to point you to arizona and to candidate mark finchem, the guy in the white hat that you saw in the story. >> right. >> reporter: he raised more than $650,000 that suggests that he certainly has a lot of energy. and the people donating to him are those small dollar amounts. election experts fear that he has certainly a lot of momentum on his side. >> wow. to think that all that fund-raising is going into races that most people just didn't even think about in years past, and now a lot of attention being paid to these very important contests. kyung lah, thank you very much

for that report. just terrific stuff. thank you. to other troubling threats to our democracy. disinformation, fox news, and yes, you, tucker carlson. >> why is it disloyal to side with russia but loyal to side with ukraine? >> we're going to help him out with an answer. he could use some actual facts, so hold on for that next. f this. (woman) wow, that's something. (burke) you get a whole lot of something with farmers policy perks. [echoing] get a quote today. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ "how bizarre" by omc ♪

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if you've seen my comments about fox news in the past, you are well aware of the nickname i've given the network. it's the bullshit factory. but maybe it should be the bolshevik factory. judging by how the network allows one of its most popular hosts to spew pro-putin propaganda. >> why is it disloyal to side with russia but loyal to side with ukraine? they're both foreign countries that don't care anything about the united states. kind of strange. imagine if mexico fell under the direct military control of china. we would see that as a threat of course. there would be no reason for that. well, that's how russia views nato control of ukraine, and why wouldn't they? we don't get anything out of pushing ukraine into nato, so why are we doing this? >> you should hear how comrade tucker sounds when he's

translated into russian, as in russian state television. there it is right there. they're eating it up like a bowl full of borscht, pointing to what he's been saying for months. apparently same goes for reaction of viewers of trump state tv, and that is fox of course. democratic congressman tom malinowski says his office is now getting calls from folks who say they watch tucker carlson and are upset that we're not siding with russia. tucker has even laughed at the idea that the u.s. would defend ukraine militarily. >> a friend just sent this tweet, quote, having lost in afghanistan, the graveyard of empires, the regime's next military adventure, invading russia in winter. perfect. >> yeah, i'm not sure why he's laughing. it should be noted that lawmakers from both parties as well as foreign policy experts have long said that putin's chief objective is to reconstitute the soviet union. sound farfetched? last december reuters reported

that russian state tv had aired some provocative comments from the autocrat, a documentary, russia, new history. in that documentary, putin lamented the collapse of the soviet union, saying it was a disintegration of historical russia under the name of the soviet union. we turned into a completely different country and what had been built up over 1,000 years was largely lost. yet for months during the escalating tensions between russia and ukraine, tucker has been questioning why the u.s. doesn't side with the kremlin. >> why would we take ukraine's side and not russia's side? it's a sincere question. if you're looking from the american perspective, why? who's got the energy reserves? who's the major player in world affairs? who's the potential counterbalance against china, which is the actual threat? why would we take ukraine's side? why wouldn't we have russia's side? i'm totally confused. >> look, clearly ukraine is a democracy. russia is an authoritarian regime that is seeking to impose its wilpon a validly elected

democracy in ukraine, and we're on the side of democracy. >> yeah, i guess i'm for democracy in other countries, i guess. >> that was ohio republican congressman mike turner taking tucker to school, trying to explain that the u.s. has historically stood with democracies in europe and against dictators who want to expand their borders by force. you know, because we're the good guys. now, sure, putin is more czar than communist, and he may well be the richest man in russia, the oligarch's oligarch. but don't forget the russian courts have a long track record of jailing opposition leaders like alexei navalny. last september a european human rights court found the kremlin responsible for the 2006 poisoning of a former russian intelligence official who defected to the west. so tucker is clearly standing on the side of a dangerous autocrat with delusions of grandeur and not just because tucker can relate to that. it's because tucker seems to have a thing for autocrats, a strongman fetish.

lately he's been fixated on hungary and that nation's anti-democratic leader, viktor orban. last year tucker aired his show from hungary, and now he's back with an interview with orban, who makes clear his disdain for migrants coming into his country. >> birth rates are declining. that's true in this country as well. it's true in europe. the populations are literally disappearing. most governments ignore this trend or instead import new citizens from the rest of the world. >> but we don't like that approach because we would not like to alter our personal life. we would not like to leave this country to the migrants. we would like to leave it to our grandchildren. >> we would not like to leave this country to the my grants, orban said. never mind the fact that this nation was built by immigrants and that our traditional national motto is e pluribus unum, out of many, one.

tucker is not just attempting to mainstream authoritarianism, he is playing divide and conquer for ratings. the biggest example of that might be closer to home and the pandemic. on almost a nightlybasis, tucker brings on guests that peddle anti-vaccine. >> these mrna vaccines need to be withdrawn from the market now. no one should get them. no one should get boosted. no one should get double boosted. they are a dangerous and ineffective product at this point against omicron. the spike that they make your body make that you then produce antibodies to is not the omicron spike. >> to be totally clear, what he is saying is absolute garbage. no pushback from tucker. these vaccines have been proven to be safe and highly effective, and just as tucker and the bolshevik factory are putting our democracy in peril, acting

as a mouth piece for putin, they are doing something perhaps even more destructive. with the u.s. approaching 1 million deaths from covid, fox and the people ultimately in charge there, the murdoch family, are inflaming a public health crisis. to the murdochs, it's your network. you own this. you own tucker's program that's putting our health care workers in peril, putting our hospitals in peril, putting all of us in peril for ratings, for money, so these american oligarchs can keep pumping out bullshit into our homes. now, if only there were a vaccine for all of that. and only there were an answer to this question pushed by another trump sympathizer. a u.s. congressman is opening wondering if eve ever seen a president attack and malign the free press like joe biden has. i need some pearls to clutch. i actually may be able to help

congressman jim banks figure it out as we travel back in time, next.

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the far right in this country is still in an uproar after president biden apologized for insulting a fox news reporter with an expletive. of course it wasn't great. it was wrong. but this is the same group of folks who came up with excuse after excuse for this behavior. >> the fake news is, in fact -- and i hate to say this -- in fact the enemy of the people. >> you didn't use it to ramp up testing. >> you're so -- you're so disgraceful. >> you want them to rein in robert miller. >> what a stupid question that is. what a student question. but i watch you a lot. you ask a lot of stupid questions. >> thank you for telling me that. see, there's a typical fake news

deal. no, look. >> i told you when she was appointed. >> you're a third-rate reporter, and what you just said is a disgrace. >> the same thing with april ryan. i watch her get up. i mean you talk about somebody that's a loser. she doesn't know what the hell she's doing. >> what do you say to americans who are watching you right now who are scared? >> i say that you're a terrible reporter. that's what i say. >> you are a rude, terrible person. you shouldn't be working for cnn. when you report fake news, which cnn does a lot, you are the enemy of the people. >> and of course i can't forget the moment where the president called me the enemy of the people. but now compare sean hannity last night responding to biden's blunder with his reaction to trump's attack on the media. >> biden once promised to restore civility, telling his appointees he would fire them on the spot if they disrespected others. of course the rules, they don't apply to joe. and his comments about peter doocy are especially ridiculous

given that biden's own weakened mental abilities. >> by the way, all those people in the back are fake news. >> there's sean, trump's mouthpiece. now given trump wants to run again and will likely have the full support of fox and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber, what could that mean for the fate of the free press? it's an important question tonight. i want to bring in constitutional law attorney and media attorney ted boutros. ted, great to see you as always. i must note that ted actually represented me when trump tried to take my press pass away at the white house. we got it back. we beat trump. but, ted, i was thinking of sending a fainting couch over to fox news and their studios, but i figured they had plenty of those along with some pearls to clutch. your thoughts? i mean we just saw, you know, trump, he drove all of these attacks against the media. what happens to the media, do you think, if trump runs again and wins? >> well, jim, it was very

amazing. it's great to be with you, and it brought back a lot of memories. i think what we're going to see are continued attacks on the press. the legitimate news gathering that's so important. the supreme court has said over and over again, including in citizens united, a case that conservatives like and liberals don't like, that the first amendment protects the ability of citizens to hold the powerful accountable, to get the information they need to govern themselves. and so this disinformation campaign coupled with attacks on the press is really harmful to our democracy, which is, i guess, the topic of this entire show. >> no question about it. and what about this anti-press sentiment that's taken hold inside the gop over at fox? that's just not going anywhere, and what does that mean for news organizations here in the united states? i guess i should say around the world because as you and i both know, ted, we've talked about

this. there are so many regimes around the world that have adopted trump's, you know, name-calling, calling organizations fake news and using things like the enemy of the people to defame journalists and so on. >> it's very, very troubling and very dangerous. it emboldens leaders around the world to abuse the press, to clamp down on the press. the republican party -- most republicans in office and running for office, part of their brand is to denigrate and delegitimize the press. and the really harmful thing is that makes it so that citizens don't believe what some of the best reporters and journalists in the world are telling them based on their news-gathering activity. but they're believing the disinformation, the lies about the 2020 election, the lies about covid, and that makes it so we're in an irrational society, and democracy just can't function. so if we have a replay, if this

continues, it's going to hurt everybody. it's going to hurt republicans. it's going to hurt all journalists, all commentators. it really needs to stop if we want to preserve the country that we have. >> and what about these lines being blurred between those in trump media and trump government? he enlisted fox news anchors as his advisers, hannity, ingraham and so on. he hired a former fox exec, bill schein to run his communications shop at the white house. i mean it goes on and on. if trump or someone like trump were to take office in 2024, how much further can we see that line get blurred between the government and the media, and what does that mean for the first amendment, for the free press in this country? it was almost becoming like a state tv type of situation the first time around. >> it's -- it's terrible, and it's gotten even worse that trump has hired devin nunes, the former congressman, who broke a

record for filing lawsuits against reporters and jou journ journalists. he's going to be the head of trump's new media company, which is just crazy, and i think that the sort of blending together of what the public sees as journalists with the government is a very, very bad development for everyone, for citizens, for journalists, or political people who want to run a government. so i think it's dangerous, jim. i did think it was funny, all the hand wringing or pete doocy, and president biden called him and apologized, and in your case, they stripped your press pass away in the dead of night. >> right. >> so there is a huge contrast. again, no presidents really like being badgered by the press, but that's what reporters do. they're meant to irritate the president and the government on behalf of all of us to get information out of them to protect us against autocracy and

th authoritarianism and abuse of power. >> that's what we do. we're doing our jobs, and that noise is the sound a functioning democracy ways. ted, as you know all too well, going along with trump's attacks on the media, you see death threats against journalists. you see, you know, people like, you know, my longtime friend br brian carem, april ryan, getting all kinds of death threats because they went up against trump. we'll talk about this further another time, but really appreciate the insights. thanks so much for coming on. ted boutros, thanks again for your insights tonight. we appreciate it. >> so great to be with you, jim. thanks. and toxic polarization is poisoning america, but if there's any hope of finding the antidote, we need to understand what's fueling it. john avlon unpacks it all in tonight's reality check. there he is. that's coming up next. vazalore... is the first liquid-filled aspirin capsule

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as we close another night reflecting on the state of democracy and how it's going to be saved, one thing is clear. it's going to take all of us. everyone on the left and the right to reach solutions. but how do we do that in the age of toxic tribalism and the big lie? perhaps, it is a matter of realizing the dangers of illiberalism. that is a concept john avlon's going to break down in tonight's reality check. it is an important topic. >> it sure is. it goes to the heart of what we are dealing with right now because, jim, the poisonous polarization, it is the feedback loop that drives americans into tribal camps. convinced that the other side is not merely mistaken but evil. and this vicious cycle is primarily a matter of negative perception driven by which side of the divide people feel is a bigger threat to our country. makes reasoning together almost impossible but we have got to

recognize both sides of the feedback loop before we can fix it because it's compounded by a core political labels today. namely, this. the far right today is not conservative and the far left is not liberal. think about it. conservatives often trace their roots back to edmond burke, an 18th century british statesman w criticized the french revolution. so there is literally nothing less conservative than the trump's mobs attack on our capitol and the constitution's peaceful transfer of power. embracing a lie to attack the foundations of our democracy is the opposite of reason and patriotism. on the far left, there is a perception that a rising generation of radical activists sees america primary through a lens of group identity politics pursuing the goals of social justice with a cancel-culture fervor that condemns even reason dissent. this fixation on our differences, rather than our

kmoon humanity, is inconsistent with classical liberalism and ends up fueling reactionary forces. when taken together, this fixation on negative perceptions amplified by hyperpartisan media kills societal trust, and creates mutual incomprehension. but here is an essential point to remember. these two perceptions are not equivalent, not remotely when it comes to the reality of our politics or the danger to our democracy right now as jonathan roust recently wrote, the far rights of liberals is far more powerful in the corridors of power. it dominates the trumpest republican party with its big-lie litmus tests. by comparison, the far left is primarily a cultural force only 15% of democrats describe themselves as very liberal according to a 2020 pew survey. n now, president biden or democratic leaders in congress support defund the police or open borders or any of the other stereotypes pushed on right-wing talk tv. but they do serve a cultural powerful irritant to folks who see their anxieties about

demographic change taking place in realtime and all this can fuel political backlash as liberal "new york times" columnist michelle goldberg pointed out in a recent essay called has the left gone wrong? they have come to believe the language of social justice left is needlessly alienating she wrote the broader left got to let go of the illusion there exists voters waiting to be roused by a radical message. that means progressives got to go into elections with the electorate they have. one that is more conservative than the one they would like. that is an important concession to reality because fixation on what she calls the language of the social-justice left does undercut the big tent coalition that is needed right now to defend democracy from the forces of the big lie. perhaps, one way to find common ground while countering these ill liberal trends on the left and right is to forth rightly defend liberalism, again. yeah, i know, the term liberal

has been a political weapon since the days of lee atwater but hearse the thing. it is actually about something much bigger than partisan politics because liberal values include absolute equality under the law, the right to self-determination, freedom of religion kiktent with the spraegsz of church and state and freedom of speech even on college campuses with vibrant civic debates rooted in the understanding everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. what a concept. perhaps, most of all, liberal values are rooted in universal individualism -- the belief that all human beings should be seen as individuals, first, and not primarily as members of a group. this remains a rebellious idea because it rejects the reflexive tribal group think that dumbs everybody down while fueling resentments that exacerbate our divides and by offering a roadmap to reconciliation at a time of reactionaries and radicals that might just help americans refocus on what really matters right now -- the common defense of our liberal democracy. and that's your reality check.

>> great stuff, john avlon. lot to think about it. really appreciate that. john avlon, thank you and we'll be right back. looking to get back in your type 2 diabetes zone? once-weekly ozempic® can help. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ ♪ oh, oh, oh ♪ ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. and you may lose weight. adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. in adults also with known heart disease, ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or death.

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and that's it for us tonight. join us tomorrow as we examine the trump loyalist takeover of the georgia gop. "don lemon tonight" starts right now. >> mr. acosta, often wondered on this very program if we are past the point of no return re our democracy in peril, and watching kyung lah's piece tonight kind of made me think we might be past the point of no return. it is really frightening, what republicans have done across the country when it comes to putting election officials in place, even on the judiciary. it is -- i think we -- it may be behind us. >> yeah. i mean, that's the thing i worry about, don, is they seem to have cracked the code. you know, like safe crackers. you know, they have opened up

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