Donald Trump has openly said that if he wins in November and returns to office, he won’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1”. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank that organised the potentially country-altering Project 2025, has said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

And on Monday at a rally for J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, an Ohio state senator named George Lang said, “I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved.”

Into this storm, Vice President Kamala Harris has been drafted as the new best hope for the Democratic Party and perhaps for democracy as we’ve known it; indeed, she was the only option to replace President Joe Biden this late in the campaign.

MAGA attacks on Kamala Harris have already become personal.Credit: AP

After Biden’s disconcerting debate performance in June, I, like many others, was concerned that the debate over changing the top of the ticket would be a pretext for Democratic insiders to swing open the door to multiple alternative candidates, that they were operating under a delusion and didn’t understand the stubborn maths of the Democratic coalition.

Fortunately, Democrats appear to........

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