Most of the Democrats and liberals I know are in a pretty good mood these days, and you might be, too. As I’ve noted the obvious recently, the Harris-for-Biden switcheroo excited and energized a party that had been dreading November 5. Now, Dems are walking on sunshine. After all, recent polls show Vice President Kamala Harris beating convicted felon, onetime reality TV celebrity, failed casino owner, court-sanctioned fraudster, and sexual assailant Donald Trump in crucial swing states. Crowds are huge and enthused at rallies for Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Campaign cash—from whales to guppies—is pouring in. And journalists reporting from Trumpland tell us Dear Leader is (surprise, surprise) irritable and erratic, upset and unsettled by the shift in the 2024 script. So much so that some of his big-money backers are concerned.

And this is all before the Ds have their convention in Chicago next week, which will provide further opportunity to hype the Harris-Walz ticket and, no doubt, feature celebs and much razzle-dazzle, as well as Gaza-related protests. I’m looking forward to chants of “Mind Your Own Damn Business” during Walz’s acceptance speech, and I imagine there will be something involving Beyoncé.

So, as we approach the post–Labor Day home stretch of a presidential campaign that could decide the future of American democracy, Democrats are entitled to be hopeful. Yet…I worry. I see the lurking ghost of 2016.

Let’s start with this basic fact: A malignant narcissist and criminal who tried to destroy our constitutional republic is still in the hunt. In 2016, many Americans found it inconceivable that a misogynistic and racist liar, carnival barker, and all-around charlatan could win the GOP nomination and then the presidency. But Trump exploited the give-him-a-shot/let’s-try-an-outsider/how-bad-could-he-be sentiment among aggrieved Republican and independent voters and slithered into the White House. That is, he won when (and maybe because) he was not a known quantity as a politician or chief executive.

Eight years later, he is very much known. He was impeached for muscling a foreign leader to manufacture dirt on his main political rival. He broke numerous electoral promises, including vows to improve health care and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. He handed corporations and the wealthy (people like himself) a big tax break and ballooned the deficit, and he suspended regulations to help polluters. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died needlessly on his watch due to his mismanagement of the Covid pandemic. He falsely claimed victory in the 2020 election, promoted his Big Lie that the contest was stolen from him, schemed to overturn the results, and incited an insurrectionist assault on the US Capitol. Plus, he swiped top-secret documents, and he and his company have been found guilty of (or liable for) assorted crimes and misconduct. And his family has suspiciously enriched itself through deals with foreign governments.

Trump now has the awful record that he didn’t have in 2016—a record that defeated him in 2020—and, nevertheless, he remains competitive. He has so successfully fomented political division that his restoration to power remains a solid possibility. Any decent political system would have expunged Trump. Ours did not. The virus of Trumpism is still present and, thus, a danger.

And here’s where I fret the most: The media generally does not know how to deal with this threat.

In 2016, the political press made numerous mistakes in how it covered Trump. The ratings allure of his lie-a-thons, otherwise known as “rallies,” was catnip for media, giving his campaign a goldmine in earned media and normalizing a figure who was anything but. The after-the-fact fact-checking that occurred could not catch up to the flood of falsehoods he flung, and no post-rally “news analysis” or contextualization could effectively counter the hateful rhetoric he spewed. Trump was often covered as a novelty in the quadrennial presidential circus. Much of his worrisome history was ignored. I know that firsthand. While my colleagues and I at Mother Jones in 2015 and 2016 covered his financial conflicts of interest, organized crime ties, and many misdeeds, we were amazed at how most of these stories went unnoticed within the conventional media. And in one of the media’s biggest screw-ups, mainstream outlets went gaga over the Democratic material stolen by Russian hackers and released by WikiLeaks, without highlighting the main story: Vladimir Putin was attacking the election to help Trump win—and Trump was aiding and abetting that operation by denying it was happening.

Fast forward to last week and the press conference that Trump held at Mar-a-Lago, which made me wonder if some of the mistakes of 2016 were being repeated. A few reporters threw strong questions at him, but many were horse-race softballs. What do you make of Harris not picking Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to be her running mate? Are you worried about the size of Harris’ crowds? How are you going to win the Black vote? What’s your campaign strategy now? When Trump declared that there had been a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election, the mob of reporters should have pounced on him for lying about January 6. That did not happen. And there was not a single query about the recent, eye-popping Washington Post exposé that raised the prospect that the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi had illegally funneled $10 million into Trump’s 2016 campaign.

As could be expected, throughout this event, Trump lied repeatedly and there was a burst of fact-checking later. The New York Times examined 16 Trump statements that were lies or misrepresentations. (But this article appeared only online, as far as I could tell, and not in the hard copy.) NPR reported—three days later—that Trump spewed 162 “lies and distortions.” The Times and other media organizations dug into the phony story that Trump had once been in a helicopter with legendary California Democrat Willie Brown that nearly crashed and that Brown, who once dated Harris, had at that time shared derogatory scuttlebutt about Harris. (To be clear, there was no such flight. But Trump did have a hairy helicopter experience with another Black politician in 1990.)

But the Times’ overarching piece on the press conference approached it not as more evidence of how unhinged the former president has become, but as the latest development in the political horse-race. This was the headline: “Trump Tries to Wrestle Back Attention at Mar-a-Lago News Conference.” The subhead was worse: “In an hourlong exchange with reporters, the former president criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for not doing the same, insulted her intelligence and boasted about the size of his rallies.” Not that Trump lied repeatedly and claimed there had been no violence during the handover to Biden in 2021.

Overall, this sort of treatment casts Trump as a regular candidate doing regular things, when that is not the real story. Perhaps I’m being nitpicky, but I fear that if Trump can still readily use the national media platform to make dumb, false, or hateful assertions, he has a decent shot at rousing enough voters in the swing states to squeak by. We also saw this past week that many in the media gave much coverage to his campaign’s fact-bending attempt to Swift Boat Walz on his National Guard service without noting Trump’s highly questionable dodging of the Vietnam draft. (There is not much to question about Walz’s time in the military.) We can expect Trump and his allies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the next three months to defame Harris and Walz. If their effort is not countered by fierce reporting that places it within appropriate contexts, this smear campaign could take a toll.

It's not just the media’s inability to handle the Trump threat that has me worried. The GOP has been spending much time and money to set up ways to challenge—and rig—the election results. As my colleague Abby Vesoulis reports, the Republican National Committee is setting up an army of lawyers to file a host of legal challenges. This project is being spearheaded by Christina Bobb, the Trump lawyer indicted in Arizona for her alleged participation in Trump’s fake elector scheme. And this month, the conservative majority on Georgia’s state election board approved a measure that could allow counties to not certify elections should Democrats prevail.

Dirty tricks are in the works. And these are just a few. Without greater media attention devoted to Trump’s 2020 coup and the current endeavors of his party, the Republicans may be better situated to overthrow democracy this time. And there’s more: Though the Trump campaign is now claiming it has been hacked by Iran, Russian disinformation operations will likely be aimed at the Harris-Walz ticket. There’s no telling if the Harris campaign and the media will be able to neutralize such a fusillade. And Elon Musk is ardently supporting Trump—so much for any concern he ever had for climate change—while becoming one of the most powerful drivers of election misinformation. With his control of X, how much can Musk put his thumb on the scale?

Not to chill your Harris-Walz buzz, but let’s recap: Trump retains the ability to spread lies, disinformation, and demagogic bombast. The GOP knows how to run a smear campaign. The Republicans remain devoted to undermining elections to gain power. And the media hasn’t quite figured out how to fully break with its traditional horse-race coverage to make these threats to democracy the central story. Given all that, Trump is certainly in the running. As long as he is, it’s a frightening time in America.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

Babylon Berlin. One of the most popular and expensive television shows in German history, Babylon Berlin is also one of the most successful neo-noir series of all time. Loosely based on the novels of Volker Kutscher and set in the Weimar Republic from 1929 to the early 1930s, it follows the interlaced paths of Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), a traumatized WWI vet and morphine addict who is now a police detective in Berlin, and Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), a police clerk who aims to become an inspector. Germany remains deeply wounded by the war. The Nazis are on the rise, Communists are agitating, nationalists are scheming, and in the capital city the Roaring 20s are roaring, with night clubs abuzz, an artistic avant-garde on the loose, and alternative lifestyles challenging traditional culture. It’s a hot mess—and quite a tough circumstance in which to be an honest cop.

Season 1, which premiered in 2017, began with Rath investigating an extortion ring that is blackmailing Konrad Adenauer—the mayor of Cologne and future chancellor of post-WWII West Germany—with a pornographic film. An adjacent plot involves a hijacked train carrying both poison gas and gold bars heading from Russia to Germany. As investigations are pursued, Rath and Ritter explore the expanding rot underlying German society. There are far too many cross-cutting political and social currents for them to navigate. But they struggle through, while contending, of course, with their own personal challenges.

Multiple stories depict the various corruptions of the era, and as Babylon Berlin proceeds through the next two seasons, Rath’s and Ritter’s endeavors become connected to the Black Reichswehr. This extralegal, right-wing paramilitary group that is secretly part of the German military is attempting to covertly re-arm Germany. And then comes the financial crash, which sets up the fourth season, which recently became available on a streaming service you probably never heard of: MHz Choice. (You can sign up for MHz Choice via Amazon Prime to watch the series.)

This latest installment of Babylon Berlin is focused on the spread of organized crime within Berlin and factionalism within the Nazi Party. Rath joins the latter in an undercover operation and becomes involved in a power struggle between the Nazis of Munich and those of Berlin, the latter looking to mount a coup against the Munich wing led by Adolf Hitler. (Imagine if they succeed!) But it’s not all fascist politics. There’s also a stolen diamond; Charlotte must sacrifice her job to prevent her street-urchin sister from being arrested; a corrupt circle of police officers needs crushing; a vigilante outfit of jurists is executing criminals who received lenient sentences; and an industrial tycoon is developing rockets that could provide German global military dominance. Babylon Berlin always has a lot going on. But much of it is connected, and it’s all occurring during a consequential era that we know is leading toward total disaster and one of the worst crimes of the 20th century.

A fifth season reportedly will begin shooting this year. It will be set in February 1933, after Hitler’s inauguration as chancellor. In a press release, the show’s creators noted, “Rarely has a society been torn apart more radically in such a short period of time than Germany in this chaotic month. Not only Gereon Rath and Charlotte Ritter, but all our protagonists also must realize that they only have a few options left: Subordinate themselves, risk their lives in open opposition, retreat into inner emigration or flee into exile. However, this decisive month also opens the possibility of changing the course of history at the last second.” Babylon Berlin has done a fabulous job of explicating and playing with history, as we watch the ease with which a corrupt modern society slips into fascism. Within it are cops and robbers, and a dire warning.

Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. Toward the end of the first of the four episodes of Stax: Soulsville U.S.A., a brilliant HBO documentary about Stax, the Memphis-based record company that pioneered R&B and soul music in the 1960s and 1970s, the label’s burgeoning lineup of stars—Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Booker T. and the M.G.’s—tour England and perform before soldout crowds of enthused and devoted fans. Though these artists had hit records back in the States, this trip showed them something they had not realized: They were stars. In the United States, they might have been successful musicians, but as Black Americans, they were second-class citizens. (The M.G.’s were an interracial band; guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn” were white.) As the documentary notes, this realization was both depressing and empowering. The appreciation they experienced in England underscored the prejudice in the States but also showed them this bigotry did not have to be forever.

Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. does an admirable job of telling the story of a small mom-and-pop record label that came to define a sound, ultimately providing a soundtrack to Black empowerment. It masterfully chronicles an important slice of American music history, while placing this tale within the larger current of Black history.

Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton, who were white, started a record company in the late 1950s in a Tennessee garage, looking to record country, rockabilly, and pop music. (Stewart was a country fiddle player.) They did not meet with much success. In the early 1960s, Stewart was introduced to R&B and formed a relationship with a local Black deejay named Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla, who each recorded songs for Stewart that became hits. Stax was off to the races. In the coming years, Stax, now set up in an old movie theater in a Black neighborhood of Memphis with its own crew of producers, songwriters, and musicians (including Issac Hayes and David Porter), created a unique sound—soulful vocals, propelling horns, hot guitar licks—and pumped out a string of hits, including Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming,” and Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” which was released after his death at the age of 26 in a December 1967 plane crash.

But, as the documentary notes, success led to complications. The interracial camaraderie was challenged by the growing civil rights crisis in the United States. (Stax had arranged for Martin Luther King Jr. to stay at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis—one of the few spots in the city where white and Black people socialized together—and it was on its balcony where the civil rights leader was assassinated.) Record biz honcho Jerry Wexler and Atlantic Records, which struck a distribution deal with Stax, soon screwed the company, nearly driving it into the grave. But Art Bell, its co-owner, brought it back to life, and the company found a second round of success with new artists, including Hayes and his blockbuster “Theme from Shaft.” As Stax became deeply aligned with ascendant Black culture, it organized in 1972 the Watts Summer Festival (aka the Wattstax concert, which was widely referred to as the Black Woodstock) at the Los Angeles Coliseum, which featured its various stars and speakers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Watts uprising.

Ultimately, Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. reminds us that soul, hit records, and the best of intentions are not enough to survive in the music business. After Bell brings in CBS as the label’s distributor, the corporate giant moves to crush the smaller firm—and prevails. Meanwhile, a local Memphis bank forces the company into bankruptcy, and the Stax studio is literally razed. The site of this rich vein of American culture becomes a vacant lot. The corporate vultures won. Fortunately, the music lived on.