Asked last week to commit to conceding should the Nov. 3 election go in favor of Democrat Joe Biden, Trump doubled down on his unfounded claims about mail-in ballots leading to widespread voter fraud in justifying his reluctance.

By refusing to pledge a peaceful transfer of power if he loses to Joe Biden in November, President Donald Trump is raising the stakes on an already contentious election by signaling how his supporters should respond if the vote doesn’t go their way.

Hours after the president spoke, for instance, there were violent clashes in Louisville, Ky., after a grand jury brought no charges for Breonna Taylor’s death. Two police officers were shot and wounded, 46 people were taken into custody and groups of right-wing militiamen were seen on the street clad in body armor and carrying assault rifles.

All political elections are combative, but the 2020 U.S. election has devolved into particularly hostile one. Democrats and Republicans alike have portrayed America’s choice in apocalyptic terms—one in which the rise of fascism or communism hangs in the balance for defining the nation’s future.

There’s just no sugarcoating it: The risk of violence in America on or after Election Day is the highest it’s been in recent memory.

That’s hard to accept in the United States, a nation that every four years holds a contentious election yet manages to transfer power peacefully. A peaceful outcome is the safer bet this year, but it’s still unsettling that the odds in favor of peace aren’t overwhelming.

Should the worst happen — a disputed election, broad civil unrest, a candidate refusing to concede — the US will have entered a dark period of its history.

According to the results of a recent poll that Healthline Media commissioned, many people in the United States are worried about having exposure to the new coronavirus if they go out to vote on election day.

What factors might contribute to these worries, and are they more of an issue in some demographic groups than others?

Its results indicate that 68% of respondents are somewhat or very concerned that they or their family members may have exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, when visiting the polling station on election day.

Young people are continuing to vote in large numbers in North Carolina. Last week, voters under 30 made up about 11% of early voters but that's now ticked up slightly to over 12%.

By race, Iowa's current pre-Election Day electorate is similar to this point in 2016, with White voters comprising the vast majority of early voters at 94%.

Republicans are narrowing the Democratic advantage in the pre-election vote. Last week, Democrats led Republicans by 12 points. As more ballots have been returned in the vote-by-mail state, the 42% of ballots cast by Democrats is now only seven points higher than Republicans' 35%.

A number of years ago, staying overnight in a hotel, I flipped through TV channels and came across Fox. A cartoon was playing, so I watched for a few minutes. I soon saw it was a political satire making fun of a Democratic leader whom Fox disagreed with.

1. Fox “News” consistently gives a right-wing political slant to the news.

2. Fox “News” is intentionally dishonest.

Kicking off his final day of campaigning ahead of Election Day in battleground Ohio, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden took aim at President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and stressed that it was time for the president “to pack his bags and go home.”

And taking aim at a president who for months resisted wearing a mask in public and who has continued to ridicule Biden’s mask wearing, the former vice president asked, “imagine where we’d be if this president from the beginning just wore a mask instead of mock wearing a mask.”

“I’m never going to wave the white flag of surrender. We’re going to beat this virus. We’re going to get it under control, I promise you” and spotlighted that “the first step to beating virus is beating Donald Trump.”

no one should listen to a lecture on racial justice from Joe Biden. He palled around with notorious, racist, segregationist senators, bragged about receiving an award from George Wallace, eulogized the exalted cyclops of the KKK

In 1993, Biden said those who display the Confederate flag are “fine people”

In May, Biden told Black Americans “you ain’t Black” if they do not support him

But the cybersecurity expert, who now is director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, says the toughest misinformation threat technology companies face, and can’t solve, is from within the U.S. — disinformation sowed by U.S. politicians, and one figure, in particular.

“The most important disinformation this cycle is coming from domestic sources, and that is huge problem for technology companies,” Stamos said. “They are loathe to wade into democratic processes in the U.S.”

f President Trump goes to a White House podium and declares victory, it will be covered by every major news organization.

In an extraordinary departure from American political tradition, Trump has been arguing for months that the election is "rigged" against him, has made false claims that mail-in voting is corrupt and has refused to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power.

It is common for some states to take several days to finalize vote counts.

"I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election," Trump said in the crucial state of North Carolina, which he is battling to keep in his column despite demographic changes that give Democrats hope.

They have warned that Trump is the only thing standing between America and"socialism," claiming Biden is too inept to prevent being taken over by a radical left that wants to defund the police and bring crime to the suburbs.

Almost every election cycle, someone on one side or the other is claiming that this is the most important election in their lifetime. Well, this one actually probably is — and it appears voters think so, too.

"You're the worst president America has ever had," Democratic nominee Joe Biden, a former vice president, told Trump during their first presidential debate.

The most immediate impact of a second Trump term would likely be on the management of the Covid-19 crisis

Not since the beginning of time has anyone ever made greater use of superlatives than Donald Trump. He has constantly been "the most" this, "the least"

"It's been the most unconventional and contentious election season of our lifetime."

And Obama, weakened by deep midterm losses of his own in 2010, was still struggling to sell the Affordable Care Act when he faced voters again in 2012.

Some suggest that Trump and the malign forces he has summoned up have already done so much damage to the institutions of U.S. democracy—especially his failure to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and his open encouragement of racial violence and national division—that his reelection in November could damage forever the 244-year-old American experiment of a republic of laws.

Some have openly warned that a second Trump term represents an existential threat to American democracy.

“There’s no question in my mind that it’s the most important election in American history. The stakes are just enormous,”

Researchers fear that this is yet another attack in a four-year war on science waged by the Trump administration.

It is not yet clear which workers would be placed in this category, but agency leaders have been given 90 days to create a preliminary list of positions that might be affected — due just one day before Trump would be inaugurated, if he were re-elected during the current US presidential race. If Trump loses to former vice president Joe Biden, Biden could quickly overturn the order.

“This is just another bomb thrown at the civil service and thrown at the government,” says Whitehouse.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Biden -- a self-described "gaffe machine" -- over his verbal stumbles, questioning whether they're evidence of cognitive decline.

This journal did not hide its disappointment. But, Nature observed, US democracy was designed with safeguards intended to protect against excesses.

Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent in next month’s presidential election, is the nation’s best hope to begin to repair this damage to science and the truth — by virtue of his policies and his leadership record in office, as a former vice-president and as a senator.

The Trump administration’s disregard for rules, government, science, institutions of democracy and, ultimately, facts and the truth have been on full display in its disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US president’s actions have exacerbated the pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States, rolled back environmental and public-health regulations and undermined science and scientific institutions. Some of the harm could be permanent.

US President Donald Trump’s rally in Henderson, Nevada, on 13 September contravened state health rules, which limit public gatherings to 50 people and require proper social distancing. Trump knew it, and later flaunted the fact that the state authorities failed to stop him. S

“This is not just ineptitude, it’s sabotage,” says Jeffrey Shaman,

Building on his record of Promises Made, Promises Kept, President Donald J. Trump has released the Platinum Plan for Black America, which will uplift Black communities across the country through a $500 billion investment.

Trump has fought to give children across America access to school choice and quality education,"

President Trump has delivered on his promise to always support people of faith.”

Expand African American Homeownership and Access to Affordable, Safe Housing