Welcome back to New World next week. I'm James Corbett of Corporate Report.com.

I'm James Evan Pallado from Mediamonarchy.com, the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation.

We have got that story up first, plus other stories about

pushing back and creating governments. But first, James, I'm just reminded of the classic

St. Hicks joke about the Rodney King cops rolling into court. Excuse me, excuse me, giant balls

coming through. Big, bold, and in your face from Time magazine,

the secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 election. In a way, Trump was right.

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and

coordinated the resistance from CEOs.

The surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business

titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed, joint statement of the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would, both sides, because there's only just the both sides, would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain inspired by the summer's massive, sometimes destructive racial justice protests in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump's assault on democracy.

The handshake between businesses and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan

campaign to protect the election, an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote,

but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible, and uncorrupted. For more than a year,

a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America's institutions as they

came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined president.

Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors.

The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory.

It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the

central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and

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