Welcome to this month’s State of Democracy! This is a free version of what I send to members each month — which includes my thoughts, musings and predictions on the key themes and trends I’m seeing in the fight for voting rights and democracy. This month the state of our democracy can be summed up in one word: unknown.

Five months after the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously said:

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.

With a little more than five months until Election Day 2024, Rumsfeld’s words aptly describe the current state of our democracy.

There are a few things we know: the names of the candidates for president, the date of the election and that the outcome of the presidential elections and control of the Congress will be hotly contested.

There are other things we know we don’t know: the outcome of Donald Trump’s various trials, what the Supreme Court will decide regarding presidential immunity and several other important cases and who will win the election.

But, as Rumsfeld said, the real wild card in this election are the unknown unknowns — the things that will happen between now and noon on Jan. 20, 2025, that could radically alter the landscape of democracy.

As we head into the beginning of the summer, the state of our democracy is plagued by the unknown. Nevertheless, I will do my best to sort out what we know, what we don’t and — most importantly — what we don’t know we don’t know.

I know one thing for certain: it’s time to get started.

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The Knowns

More Republican litigation. We know that Republicans will be more litigious in the run up to the 2024 election then they have ever been before. Recall that this was one of the reasons the current RNC chair was hired — to fight more aggressively against voting rights in court. Indeed, at times it seems like fighting against voting rights is the RNC’s only actual function. Currently, the GOP is active in opposing voting rights in 61 lawsuits and has filed 21 new anti-voting lawsuits in just the first few months of the year.

Republicans are all election deniers now. It is a sad commentary on democracy that the Republican Party’s presidential candidate has made clear (again) that he will not accept the outcome of the election if he loses. And while it is hard to imagine the GOP can debase itself further, it is frankly a new low that its rank-and-file elected officials — senators, members of Congress, governors — also now preemptively refuse to say they will abide by the outcome of the election.

Only one Trump trial. Let’s face it, for all the talk about how the judicial system might hold Trump accountable, it has largely failed. Yes, the porn-star hush-money trial (or in polite D.C. circles, the election interference trial) is taking place, but the two cases about his subversion of democracy will have to wait until 2025 at the earliest. In Florida, Judge Cannon managed to catch and kill the classified documents case with such efficiency that David Pecker is impressed.

The Known Unknowns

Rules of the road in swing states. Many of the rules around who gets to cast ballots and if those ballots are counted will be decided by courts between now and November. In battleground states with tight margins, the outcome of these cases will make or break the election. We know what we don’t know. Here’s what we don’t know…

• Arizona: Will the state’s election bible, the Election Procedure Manual, survive three separate GOP lawsuits?

• Georgia: Will Republicans’ new voter challenge law successfully disenfranchise more voters?

• Michigan: Will conservative lawsuits succeed in kicking voters off the rolls?

• Nevada: Will Donald Trump’s first election lawsuit of the cycle effectively curb mail-in voting?

• Pennsylvania: Will there be any relief for voters who make small clerical errors on their ballots?

• Wisconsin: Will pro-voting lawsuits restore ballot drop boxes?

Trump’s immunity in limbo. Speaking of the Supreme Court, we are owed a decision on whether presidents can stage coups and assassinate their opponents without legal consequence. It tells you a lot that the current president, Joe Biden (who Trump has argued can assassinate a rival in office) is against it, while Trump is for it.

Election vigilantism. Republicans are planning on challenging voters and want the right to harass election workers. No one knows how bad it will be and how well prepared the system is to withstand the attacks.

Post-election challenges. In 2020, Trump and his allies launched 65 post-election lawsuits and lost 64 of them. There were three statewide recounts, fake electors and a press conference in front of a landscaping company. And, of course, there was a violent insurrection at the Capitol. While we prepare for the worse, no one knows for sure what that looks like.

Guilty or not guilty. The New York jury will have the last word. We don’t know what it will be or whether it will matter.

The Unknown Unknowns

What do we make of the unknown unknowns? It is tautological that we cannot know what they are. As soon as we speculate as to what they are they cease to be unknown. But we can be clear about what they are not.

Trump inciting a violent mob is not unknown. Threatening his opponents and abusing institutions is not unknown. Disrespecting the rule of law is not unknown.

Likewise, the Republican Party intimidating voters, making it harder to vote and finding ways to cheat are all well known. Republican officials turning a blind eye is known as is their willingness to debase themselves and do whatever Trump wants.

As Rumsfeld said, unknown unknowns are the ones that “throughout the history of our country and other free countries…tend to be the difficult ones.” But fooling ourselves into thinking what we didn’t know and could not have known may be the biggest risk for this fall.

The one thing that can make things known is time. As we get closer to the election, things will become clearer. More on that in next month's State of Democracy.

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