“It can be easy to view some of this as science fiction, doomsday stuff, but there is really something extraordinary and extraordinarily worrying going on,” said Michael Waldman, president of the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. “The checks and balances, the legal constraints, the unwritten norms — they’re all under enormous pressure.”

The Trump campaign says the real danger to the nation’s core principles is Democrats and their nominee, the longtime moderate and former vice president…

Trump’s attempts to sow distrust in the most basic functions of a democratic society — in particular voting — should give all Americans pause, Waldman said.

“That’s what a dictator does,” he said. “It’s utterly foreign to the entire 244-year history of the country. There’s been ugliness. There’s been racism. But to have a leader try to undermine the vote, as a part of his core strategy, is something that’s never happened.”

“That is a sign of a shaky democracy.”