As President Donald Trump heads to Georgia for a campaign rally on Saturday, a menace is spreading across the country: a right-wing insurrection, led by the president and his supporters, to overthrow the 2020 election by intimidation or force. That threat is becoming a central issue in the Jan. 5 Georgia runoffs that will decide control of the U.S. Senate.

The insurrection has been boiling at pro-Trump rallies in the past few weeks. In Georgia, amid chants of “victory or death,” speakers have vowed to “remove” a new Democratic administration, arguing that it “doesn’t have the military on their side.” At a rally led by Donald Trump Jr., a speaker warned, “We’re getting ready to start shooting.” Last weekend in Michigan, a crowd cheered as a member of the Proud Boys declared, “We don’t want a civil war, but we’re already in one. And we’re in it to win it.” In Florida, rally leaders called the election result a “war on our homeland” and pledged, “We will not allow them to fire a man for doing his job perfect.” In Arizona, a speaker demanded the imprisonment of President-elect Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. “We have to protect [Trump] at any cost,” he said. Another speaker denounced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, calling for “rebellion” and adding, “I’d love to see half of these people hung by the neck.” The crowd shouted its approval…

The Republican Party and its Senate nominees in Georgia, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, could have stood with democracy. They could have accepted Trump’s defeat and asked their supporters to unite behind the new president. Instead, they’ve embraced Trump’s lies and defiance. “We’re going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out,” Vice President Mike Pence pledged at a rally for Loeffler and Perdue in Georgia on Friday. He urged Republicans to “stand with” Trump in his challenges to the election, and he told the crowd—in a gesture of support for claims of Democratic cheating—“We’re on ’em this time.” This isn’t a party of law and order. It’s a party of civil war.