Democratic activists and former government officials have been quietly mapping out scenarios to bypass the existing constitutional order, openly discussing extra-constitutional measures and a potential third Continental Congress should they deem the federal government illegitimate.
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According to The Post Millennial, footage obtained by the group DataRepublican captures a series of Zoom strategy sessions in 2026 involving the Democratic Constitution Forum, the Democracy Renewal Group, and the network known as RAD. Participants, many with backgrounds in international democracy promotion and left-wing organizing, speak candidly about using a future crisis of legitimacy around US elections as a springboard to transform our system and pursue a new, explicitly democratic constitution.
The conversations, framed as defensive moves to protect democracy, instead reveal a coordinated effort to redefine it on progressive terms, potentially outside the bounds of the current Constitution.
In a March 25, 2026 call with the Democratic Constitution Forum, Walt Roberts of IMIP/Thriving Together US introduced himself as part of a well-connected cadre of former US foreign-aid operatives. He said he is teamed up with the leaders of the Democracy Renewal Group. That's 300 people who used to be USAID people, you know, doing democracy work and authoritarian pushback all over the globe.
Another participant on the call identified himself as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the DSA Unity Group Caucus, underscoring the explicitly left-wing orientation of the project. He said his caucus had fought for the DSAs program to say that the ultimate goal is a democratic constitution based on universal and equal suffrage and a unicameral legislature.
That formulation would amount to a wholesale redesign of the American system, effectively abolishing the Senate and the federalist structure that gives smaller states a voice. It reflects a long-standing progressive frustration with constitutional checks and balances that limit majoritarian rule and protect state sovereignty.
During the same meeting, Danielle Reiff of the Democracy Renewal Group focused on the upcoming November midterm elections and the political turbulence they might generate. She said that she is foreseeing a crisis of legitimacy around the November election.
Reiff explicitly framed public concern over election integrityan issue often dismissed by Democrats when raised by conservativesas an opening to push for sweeping systemic change. She said, citing how some Americans are concerned about the legitimacy of elections, I think we have an opportunity. I think the midterms, especially if there's a meltdown around the, in midterms and a crisis of legitimacy, could be a real window of opportunity for us to say, okay, some red lines have been crossed, and we can say, but you know what we really need to do is transform our system. Let's start a conversation about that. But in order to do that in November and take advantage of the meltdown scenario, we have to get super, super organized in the next seven months. So I think this is a plan that needs to be on steroids.
Her language suggests not a neutral concern for stability, but a readiness to capitalize on chaos to advance a preexisting agenda of constitutional overhaul. Rather than seeking to restore trust in existing institutions, the strategy appears aimed at declaring them broken and using that narrative to justify radical restructuring.
Reiff later turned to the question of how such a transformation might unfold in practice, raising the prospect of operating outside the current constitutional framework. I mean, the conversation broadly that we've started is what happens if we need to vote extra constitutional to create the kind of transformation that we'd all like to see? And so, you know, we've talked about a sequence of like an important convening, maybe like a third Continental Congress that actually you know comes up with a declaration that says here are the red lines.
She elaborated on the idea of predefined triggers that would justify abandoning the existing order in favor of a new process. Like if these red lines in our democracy are crossed, we will move into an extra-constitutional process. And here's what it looks like, you know. And then maybe you go right into a constitutional convention, or maybe there's a national dialog in between that gives some time and space for people to come together, build the coalition, figure out what are our shared values. How are we going to do a constitutional convention?
Even as she acknowledged the risks of moving too quickly, Reiff made clear that the end goal remains a democratic constitutional convention on terms defined by this activist network. She said that she feared jumping straight into a constitutional convention too soon before the situation is ripe could actually be dangerous. But I do think we can start a path, start to get us on a path that lands us when the timing and ripeness are there to a democratic constitutional convention.
To avoid being dismissed as a partisan fringe, Reiff stressed the need to cloak the effort in broader legitimacy. She said that the pathway that needs to be taken to get to a constitutional reform process needs to include broad support and legitimacy, so that it's not just sidelined as partisan, or you know, something that can be easily dismissed or sabotaged.
In a separate August 13, 2026 meeting with the group RAD, Reiff described a more dramatic scenario in which the federal government itself is declared void. She said that theres also the path in which we end up in a very acute legitimacy crisis sometime in the next few months or the next few years, where literally our federal government becomes illegitimate. And in that moment, I believe, and what we know from experiences around the world is that we can take that breakdown moment and leverage it for a big structural reform, you know, refounding moment.
Such rhetoric mirrors the color revolution playbook that many of these former USAID and democracy-promotion professionals once applied abroad, now seemingly redirected inward. The notion of a refounding moment suggests not reform within the constitutional order, but a reset of the order itself.
RAD co-coordinator Paul Zietz described a sophisticated infrastructure being built to monitor political developments and trigger responses if certain thresholds are met. He said that United Democracy Alliance, which was described as a huge coalition of the blocking movement, has developed a set of red lines that are now being refined in terms of indicators and metrics, and they're working on creating a situation room so that as we go into the midterm election, they're going to be able to provide real-time updates, real-time information to the movement of movements, so that we can respond, you know, to whatever might unfold, either in 26 or when we go into the 28 elections.
Zietz added that the initiative is being spearheaded under the banner of a group with deep ties to the national security establishment. He said the effort is being led under the National Security Leaders of America, which consists of 1,600 retired cross-partisan military intelligence diplomats ambassadors that are all, you know, working on protecting our democracy.
Beyond monitoring, RAD has also prepared concrete guidance for state executives in the event Washington is deemed beyond redemption. Zietz said that RAD had created an options memo for governors, because if the federal government is deemed to be illegitimate by whatever crossing of whatever red lines that and everyone agrees to that, then the governors become the leading governing authority under the current republic framework of our Constitution. So, this memo was designed for them.
John Mongan, a former State Department official, explained that this memo has already been circulated to key blue-state leaders. He said he was able to get it to the governors of Massachusetts, California, and Illinois, Mongan saying Massachusetts didnt want to touch it, while the latter two were interested in getting involved if someone else would take the lead on it.
Mongan outlined the sweeping scope of what these governors and allied leaders are being urged to contemplate. He said that governors and other leaders needed to start making plans for what functions of the federal government they would have to assume, how they would coordinate with each other, how they would reach out to foreign governments and all the other things they would have to do to basically wall off these illegitimate individuals and keep on trying to run the country, or at least parts of the country, in the absence of a functioning federal government.
He insisted that the concept stops short of formal disunion, even as it envisions states effectively supplanting federal authority under certain conditions. He said that the idea is not a concept for a secession, no one is talking about leaving the United States.
For conservatives who still regard the Constitution as the bedrock of ordered liberty, these conversations raise stark questions about who truly poses a threat to democratic norms. While the left routinely brands its opponents as authoritarian, the footage shows progressive operatives, former diplomats, and national security veterans openly gaming out how to declare the federal government illegitimate, shift power to ideologically aligned governors, and ultimately press for a new democratic constitution that would erase long-standing checks, balances, and federalist safeguards.
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