I can tell you: this is how a democracy dies.

These Trump supporters, many of whom were armed, surrounded the bus on the interstate and attempted to drive it off the road. They outnumbered police 50-1, and they ended up hitting a staffer’s car. 3/

The police refused to help. When I flagged down one officer, he said his hands were tied: “not my jurisdiction.” He was wearing a blue stripe bandana. 4/

Understandably, though nobody was hurt, the rest of the tour was cancelled. And as a historian who studied the rise of the Third Reich, I can tell you: this is how a democracy dies. 5/

While Germany still had elections and Hitler was merely a disgraced politician, his militia of Brownshirts interrupted his opponents’ political meetings and incited violence on the streets. You know what happened next. 6/

We don’t know what Trump’s supporters (or Russia) have planned for Tuesday. We don’t know what kind of intimidation and suppression will inevitably occur. 7/

But we can be prepared. In the next four days, we can create such a landslide that their efforts are futile, sending a message that Nazi tactics have no place in America. 8/