[Music]
this
is america three nights before election
day
philadelphia is a city silenced by covid
shut down by curfew the shops are
boarded up
the streets deserted and the national
guard
are on the lookout for trouble american
election season is normally a frenzy of
activity and noise the slogans talk of
american pride or hope and change but
this time around
this time it's the silence that gets you
there is an odd kind of darkness to the
politics right now
you can blame the pandemic or that sense
of civil
public unrest but i keep hearing
this time that democracy is on the
ballot
and i've come to find out what that even
means
we could ask the question almost
anywhere in this vast country
but we've come to pennsylvania because
quite frankly
it's the place on everyone's mind
battleground pennsylvania is the biggest
of the big blue states president trump
flipped four years ago
the president said to hold rallies in
four different parts of the state today
my message is simple pennsylvania is
critical in this election and if we win
pennsylvania
it's over
so we begin our road trip in a place
renowned for battle
getty's burst
adams county is deep republican red they
helped turn the whole
state trump in 2016 by just point seven
percent
we've been invited to meet walt takalski
who represents the local republican
party
at a rally just outside town the guest
speaker today
one donald trump jr and then we'll fix
up roads and tunnels and bridges in
afghanistan that will be blown up two
weeks later i want to fix the roads in
pennsylvania
as soon as we start filming there the
atmosphere sours
and again i've told you to stop
recording and you've been recording
again
so now i need to get law enforcement
involved because you are here
and with that despite our invitation to
attend
we've asked you to leave we're escorted
off the premises
something i've never experienced at a
political event before
you know pennsylvania has been a
battleground state the last several
elections
back at his offices i catch up with walt
he's been working with the party for
decades
so is our experience the new normal i
don't know
these guys from adam i've never met them
before although i've seen them at other
rallies like the religious rally they
were there
to help keep the crowd in their corrals
and uh when he said no foreign press
that made no sense to me
and i really don't know what to make of
it beyond that
so what have you loved about the last
four years what has he done that's made
you
come back for more for me its promises
made promises kept he has
told us what he was going to do in 2016
and he has tried to do it now he's had
to fight the congress he's had to fight
the senate
he's had to fight impeachment just
imagine where our country would be today
if instead of the establishment and the
swamp fighting him
they would have joined in i want to know
if walt himself thinks democracy is on
the ballot
this time round a lot of the democrats
or a lot of voters are really nervous
uh when they hear donald trump refuse to
recognize a peaceful transfer of power
if he loses it's a little bit nuanced
there's a lot of media out there that
says he
is not going to leave peacefully well
that was him wasn't it he refused to
he didn't say quite that what he says is
we'll have to see with just 72 hours to
go
they're keen for all the support they
can get hey
rita check this out this man has just
come in to give us a box of
uh trump hats that we can sell to help
pay the rent
all right michelle has been republican
since she first door knocked as a child
for richard nixon
she tells me she fears the liberals and
what they'll do to america's freedoms
no we just don't want to go along with
you know
socialism no we like our guns
we like a lot of things and i don't want
to have to pay for somebody else's stuff
when i've had to work for everything i
got
it's like you're free to go work
anywhere you want and get a job and go
for her america's division is pretty
personal
her little brother's on what she calls
the wrong side
what happens then if you and your
brother talk politics um
well quite frankly we probably won't
talk for a few months and we will yell
and scream and you know there might be a
little even though we're older a little
pushing and i'm thinking about michelle
her brother and countless other families
feeling the strain
as we head into the town that lives
under the shadow of republican america's
favorite son
gettysburg was the turning point in
america's civil war
a clash between confederate south and
the more metropolitan north
and without pushing the metaphor too far
it was bloody
and it was self-inflicted to borrow the
words often attributed
to abraham lincoln america will never be
destroyed from the outside he said
if we falter it will be because we
destroy ourselves
so is america on a course of
self-destruction right now
seems a fitting question to ponder as we
head east to philadelphia
the largest city in pennsylvania the
cradle of american democracy
it was here the founding father signed
the declaration of independence
and later the u.s constitution
here in other words the very foundations
were laid
america always finds a way to come
together
and america after this election will
find a way to come together
and it's in a quiet suburb just outside
the center
that i find sean taggett he's a white
working-class mail
demographically speaking the backbone of
the trump vote last time round
but sean is a biden guy and perhaps most
controversially of all
a political optimist sean it's quite
striking here you've got a
trump pence sign up there and abide
these are very close neighbors right
yes no problem no problem at all
for the majority of people in the city
and from where we're standing right now
in northeast philadelphia
uh people people feel it's okay to
disagree you know with politics
everybody has their own interest
everybody has their own ideas and ideals
and for the most part we generally we
get along we get along as neighbors in
the community
you know the street we're standing on
right now uh we had a hero we lost
officer jimmy o'connor
in the philadelphia police department
who was murdered
earlier this year and that was a big hit
to this community in this street in this
neighborhood
and he was a friend of all of ours so
naturally a lot of the police department
you know
and a lot of the cops are republicans
and they back donald trump myself in
organized labor i back joe biden
still we all seem to get along we all
care we all love each other
and that's what this neighborhood's all
about it's community first here
i don't know what this year is going to
be it's going to be nice it's going to
be is it going to be quiet you think
you're
home sean's wife erin is more wary
whoever wins i just think there's going
to be it's going to be problems
unrest jess what kind of unrest
um i think if trump wins
um biden people are going to retaliate
and you know probably
protest and if biden wins it's going to
be the same thing
our american democracy was born here
and what we do this weekend in this next
four days
we're going to save it here in
philadelphia
now
this morning's rally has brought the big
democrats to town to energize the
blue-collar workers that turned this
state red last time
i just want to pick up on something that
you said on the stage a second ago the
future of our democracy is at stake why
do you say that
donald trump is the first president in
american history
who i don't believe in his heart of
hearts he's a small d
democrat you look at the people he
reveres on the international stage
they're all the dictators they're the
authoritarians you don't think he
believes in american democracy
i don't i don't i genuinely believe that
this is the first president
in american history who in his heart of
hearts does not believe in democracy
who wishes that he could be an autocrat
like the other strong men he reveres
delaware senator chris coons now tipped
to be the next secretary of state if
biden wins tomorrow
has more specific concerns look the
republican party has honed the tools of
voter suppression
and of ballot manipulation over the last
decade federal courts
have concluded that in a dozen different
states
they've changed the laws around voter id
around the number of
pallet of locations for voting the
timing of voting
it sounds from what you're saying like
you fear for democracy in america
right now we are defined globally
as a democracy that has had free and
fair elections and a regular
peaceful transfer of power for over 200
years
whether we are still the world's leading
and most visible democracy
is on the ballot on november 3rd here in
the united states
do you not think that there will be a
peaceful transfer of power
we have a president who over and over
has refused
to publicly commit himself to accept the
results of the election
and to peaceably transfer power
i'm not concerned by what i'm saying i'm
concerned by what he said
he said let's see didn't he that was
what he said who says that
what president has ever said will see as
opposed to
of course whenever the election is
decided
by our voters and our courts i will
accept the result how is it acceptable
for a president of the united states in
a national debate
to say i don't know peaceful transfer of
power we'll see
pennsylvanian law allows posted ballots
sent before election day to be counted
up to three days after november the
third
but remarks by president trump
suggesting it would be
bedlam to have no result on election
night have raised the specter he won't
wait for legitimate votes to be counted
before self-declaring victory
which may explain why in deluvian end of
day's weather
the cities dotted with activists manning
drop in balor boxes
telling voters to get their papers in
now you have a lot of people that signed
up for the melon ballots
but we need them to drop it off the
election is tuesday um
there's some things going on with the
supreme court as far as violence being
counted
after election day and maybe you know
with the with
the mail system and they slow it up so
we want to make sure we get people to
drop it off so that you know
they can get their vote to be counted
and get things done yeah when you
violate somebody right
and frustration kicks in it's going to
be protesting there's going to be
writers
because people are frustrated you got to
understand
the people that died for the right to
vote so violating that and taking their
vote away
is going to cause problems can this once
great democracy
really be held hostage to the fortune of
postal deadlines
counting speeds and the whim of leaders
as the world awaits for its decision
america's third president thomas
jefferson reminded his people
america does not have government by the
majority but by the majority who
participate
simpler times perhaps the quote needs a
2020 caveat
america's government by the majority who
participate
wants the county of their vote is done