Former President Donald Trump still refuses to acknowledge the reality that he lost the 2020 election, even after his effort to overturn the results led to a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol and criminal indictments of Trump and numerous associates.

Now, he seems to be setting the stage for a repeat.

“The radical-left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020,” he told a gathering of Christian conservatives in June. "And we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024.”

Trump’s grievances about 2020 led him to call for the suspension of the Constitution.

In a 2022 post on his Truth Social platform, he wrote, “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

He has repeatedly promised retribution against his perceived enemies.

Last week, he posted on social media, “The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law.”

He added, “This legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials.”

Trump’s promise to weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies is the very thing he’s baselessly accused President Joe Biden of doing. It would represent a break with longstanding policy shielding the Justice Department from political interference.

Trump says he’ll appoint a special prosecutor to go after Biden and his family, among others, and regularly accuse his opponents of crimes — including Vice President Kamala Harris.

“She’s a criminal. She really is,” he said in a speech in Aurora, Colorado, earlier this month.

More recently, Trump has begun using a new phrase to describe his opponents: "the enemy from within."

“It is the enemy from within, and they’re very dangerous,” he said at a recent all-women Fox News town hall. “They’re Marxists and communists and fascists.”

Trump’s rhetoric is often clearly at odds with the First Amendment. He has said critics of the Supreme Court should be jailed, and recently threatened CBS after claiming a “60 Minutes” interview with Harris was deceptively edited.

“CBS gets a license, and the license is based on honesty,” he said in Aurora. "I think they have to take their license away.”

They are also concerned about state violence. Trump has suggested sending the military into big cities to fight crime, despite constraints on using military troops for domestic law enforcement. According to former defense secretary Mark Esper, Trump once raised the possibility of the military shooting violent protesters in the legs.

As for Jan. 6, Trump regularly downplays the day’s events.

“It was love and peace,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News Oct. 15.

He has suggested he would pardon rioters, even those convicted of assaulting police.

All of it has led Harris to raise alarms.

“I believe Donald Trump is a danger to the well-being and security of America,” she said at a CNN town hall last week.

Trump, of course, rejects the notion he poses a threat to democracy. He often seeks to divert attention to the way Biden was removed from the Democratic ticket.

“You talk about a threat to democracy,” Trump said at the debate with Harris on Sept. 10. “He got 14 million votes, and they threw him out of office.”

Biden, of course, willingly called off his reelection campaign and the Democratic Party followed all rules and procedures in installing Harris as the nominee.