In the movie The Untouchables, written by David Mamet and directed by Brian De Palma, a streetwise Irish cop named Malone tries to educate a starry-eyed fed named Eliot Ness in the ways of Chicago justice when up against an implacable, deadly opponent like Al Capone. The scene has become justly famous for this line: "He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. THAT'S the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone."

But for our purposes here, what even more important is the exchange between Sean Connery and Kevin Costner that immediately precedes it: 

Ness: I want to get Capone! I don't know how to get him.

Malone: [talking privately in a church] You said you wanted to know how to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying, what are you prepared to do?

Ness: Everything within the law.

Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the ball on these people Mr. Ness you must be prepared to go all the way. Because they won't give up the fight, until one of you is dead. 

Well, that's the question, isn't it? In a battle between good and evil, with the law having gone over to the side of evil—as it had in the gangland Chicago of the 1920s and '30s—what are the good guys prepared to do? With the country-as-founded now being shot out from underneath us on a near-daily basis, how do concerned citizens fight back?

The electoral system? Since the election of George W. Bush in 2000, there have been at least three presidential votes in which the losing side has contested the outcome; Bush's hanging chads, Hillary Clinton's baseless charge of "Russian collusion" against Donald Trump in 2016, and the chaos of 2020 that installed longtime hack politician Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. in the Oval Office. Of these, the two most recent are best viewed in tandem. The Left was taken by surprise by Trump's Electoral College victory (the only kind that counts) and, starting the day after the vote, launched its plan to make sure they'd never be robbed by what they thought was a fixed fight again.

Read this—"Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition" from something called the Electoral Integrity Project and weep:

Some of their thoughts:

• The concept of “election night,” is no longer accurate and indeed is dangerous. We face a period of contestation stretching from the first day a ballot is cast in mid-September until January 20. The winner may not, and we assess likely will not, be known on “election night” as officials count mail-in ballots. This period of uncertainty provides opportunities for an unscrupulous candidate to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the process and to set up an unprecedented assault on the outcome. Campaigns, parties, the press and the public must be educated to adjust expectations starting immediately.
• A determined campaign has opportunity to contest the election into January 2021. We anticipate lawsuits, divergent media narratives, attempts to stop the counting of ballots, and protests drawing people from both sides. President Trump, the incumbent, will very likely use the executive branch to aid his campaign strategy, including through the Department of Justice. We assess that there is a chance the president will attempt to convince legislatures and/or governors to take actions – including illegal actions – to defy the popular vote.

"Dangerous" it is for sure. One instant solution is to restore Election Night to its one-day, one-vote place in the proper scheme of things. And note for the record that "an unscrupulous candidate" describes Mrs. Clinton's churlish and criminal response to her loss in 2016 far better than it does Trump's. As for defying the popular vote, so what? That vote means nothing until the Left finally passes its National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and thus eliminates the Electoral College by unconstitutional means.

Some of their solutions: 

• Plan for a contested election. If there is a crisis, events will unfold quickly, and sleep-deprived leaders will be asked to make consequential decisions quickly. Thinking through options now will help to ensure better decisions. Approach this as a political battle, not just a legal battle. In the event of electoral contestation, sustained political mobilization will likely be crucial for ensuring transition integrity. Dedicated staff and resources need to be in place at least through the end of January.
• Address the two biggest threats head on: lies about “voter fraud” and escalating violence. Voting fraud is virtually non-existent, but Trump lies about it to create a narrative designed to politically mobilize his base and to create the basis for contesting the results should he lose. The potential for violent conflict is high, particularly since Trump encourages his supporters to take up arms.

Except that politically mobilized Trump supporters didn't take up arms on Jan. 6, and as for "violence," the patsy protesters had nothing on the Antifa and Black Lives Matters thugs during the Summer of Floyd of blessed but rapidly fading memory, his work on earth here now done.

If not the system (which as I noted here and here, IS the steal, having now effectively legalized voter fraud), then what? Certainly not the courts. Time after time, suits have been brought in response to this or that enormity, only to have the courts dismiss the plaintiffs as "without standing." Most egregious of the recent examples was Texas v. Pennsylvania in late 2020, in which Texas and other states sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—the states that handed Biden his "win"—for changing their election laws (owing in large part to the Covid hoax) by means other than legislative, in clear violation of the Constitution.

Further, the suit was brought directly to the Supreme Court under Article III of the federal constitution which cites disputes between and among states as one of the Court's few "original jurisdiction" powers. This was the only one of the many suits launched by or on behalf of the Trump campaign that had a legitimate chance of winning, but of course the Roberts Court wanted nothing to do with it, and drop-kicked it through the goalposts of infamy. "Without standing"? If the citizens of the several states and the states themselves, whose initial compact resulted in the creation of the federal government in the first place, don't have standing, then who the hell does?

As the members of the Court, especially its weak and cowardly Chief Justice, John Roberts, wonder why the Court's reputation has fallen into such disrepute, its abandonment of its constitutional role as an arbiter and its arrogation of legislative authority with the Marbury power grab of 1803 surely has everything to do with it. Congress, by the way, could strip the court of its "judicial review" powers any time it wanted to, but of course it never will. 

And speaking of the Congress—that "parliament of whores" in the late P.J. O'Rourke's famous phrase—the recent revelations of the Twitter Files, the display of the hidden Jan. 6 videos, and the scalded-vampire reaction to their publication and broadcast by such "Republicans" as Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, and Thom Tillis (whoever he is) have pantsed and unmasked the distaff-bitch side of the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party. One of the most enduring effects of Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss' bravery in pulling back the McConnell curtain will be the public realization, at long last, of the perfidy of the establishment Republicans, and the understanding that this is why nothing ever changes, even when the GOP is in power. 

No surcease from the courts or the Congress, then. Meanwhile, the addlepated but deeply malevolent Joe Biden, who continues his payback war against everyone who wrote him off half a century ago as a malignant idiot, continues to illustrate the truth of "Irish Alzheimer's," which is that you only remember the grudges. Wrecking the economy, annihilating longstanding societal norms in the name of "equity", picking a fight with Russia like a drunk in a bar nearing closing time, shuttling his treasury secretary over to the Ukraine as techbro banks collapse literally overnight, Biden is the most destructive president in American history, even worse than Woodrow Wilson: like Wilson he disbelieves in the Constitution; unlike Wilson, he openly despises his country and his countrymen and acts on it every day.

So what are you prepared to do? The recent midterms, which were supposed to have been a spanking for the Democrats, barely moved the needle. The sudden appearance of Kevin McCarthy's backbone as speaker of the House has been a pleasant surprise (and thanks to the Freedom Caucus for holding his feet to the fire until they got what they wanted), but the superannuated Senate led by two ambulatory stereotypes, Chuck Schumer and Turtle McChao, is functionally dysfunctional, held periodic hostage by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, and now boasting both a vegetable in John Fetterman and its very own Lady Gaga in Dianne Feinstein. There is much talk of partition, even of civil war. 

Yet most of us continue to believe in America; like the movie version of Eliot Ness, we've sworn to do "everything within the law" to try and right the ship of state before, like all previous democracies, it sinks beneath the waves of historical reality. As I often say about the imported "critical theory" Left, they never stop, they never sleep, they never quit. They won't give up the fight until one of us is dead. 

So then what are you prepared to do?

Let's hope it never comes to this. Better it should end this way, with America restored as the gangsters are sent scurrying for jail or their rodent holes: 

One way or another, that's how you get Capone. Which is it to be?