Would you be willing to do what Navalny did?

Don't forget Elise Stefanik was among the speakers at Madison Square Garden

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Alexei Navalny exposed the corruption of high-ranking officials in the Russian government, organized political demonstrations and became a threat to those in power.

He was part investigative journalist, part crusading reformer and aspiring politician.

He called Vladimir Putin's government "a party of crooks and thieves."

His goal was to make Russia a better place for his fellow citizens.

The result was repeated arrests for leading anti-government protests and spreading the truth.

In 2020, Navalny collapsed during a flight from Siberia.

He had been poisoned.

In the documentary Navalny, there is video of him screaming during the flight as his body shut down. The plane made an emergency landing and after pressure from world leaders, he was allowed to travel to Berlin to be treated.

But here's the larger point.

For those flag-waving, God-Bless-America patriots out there, could you ever imagine doing what Navalny did to defend our Constitution and democracy?

I suspect you could not even imagine it.

Consider what Navalny did next in January 2021 with a wife and two young children.

He returned to Russia.

He knew the consequences were dire.

When he arrived at the airport, he was arrested and taken away. He was tried on charges of extremism and given a long prison sentence.

He never would be free again.

How many of you would have done the same thing for your countryman?

How many would instead wonder, "Why?" when considering his sacrifice

Why return?

Why give up your life?

Because he believed in the cause.

He believed good people needed to fight for what is right.

At the start of the Navalny documentary that won an Academy Award in 2022, director Daniel Roher asks Navalny, "If you are killed, if this does happen, what message do you leave behind to the Russian people?"

He thinks for a second and says, "You are not allowed to give up."

And Navalny is the just the latest in Russia.

Political foes, journalists, human rights activists and whistle-blowing lawyers all were murdered at the behest of Putin and his cohorts.

Good people.

Dedicated people looking to make their country a better place to live.

You should know this, but I fear many of you do not.

You do not realize what authoritarian rule looks like and the shambles it makes of your society.

It is the only issue in this presidential election, yet half of you are willing to risk your freedoms because groceries are too expensive.

These are the ways of authoritarian dictators.

Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said in an interview this past week on 60 Minutes, there was never any doubt her husband would return to Russia. Living in exile was not an option.

“I knew from the outset that I would be imprisoned for life — either the rest of my life or until the end of the life of this regime,” Navalny wrote in his prison diary in March 2022. “I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here.”

And he did.

Now consider what presidential candidate Donald Trump has said.

"Journalists who decline to identify the sources of leaked information would also face imprisonment. If the reporter doesn't want to tell you, it's ‘bye-bye,’ the reporter goes to jail.”

Will my criticism of Elise Stefanik be a misdemeanor or a felony in a new regime?

Will posting the wrong lawn sign get you fired from your government job?

Trump has promised that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden will both be tried without specifying the charges. That's how authoritarians eliminate the competition.

Generals like Mark Milley and former chief of staff John Kelly will face military tribunals and possible execution.

I know, I know, you can't even imagine such a thing happening in America, yet that is what Donald Trump says will happen and the Supreme Court has ruled that he will not be held responsible for breaking any laws.

He says Republican Liz Cheney is guilty of treason and asks if military tribunals should be television.

He has even threatened to arrest election workers.

This is what the presidential candidate that half of you are supporting is promising.

How can that be American?

So when you walk past the red, white and blue bunting to cast your vote Tuesday, I urge you to think about Alexei Navalny and whether you would ever consider doing the same thing for your country.

And remember what Navalny told his countryman to consider if he died.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing," Navalny said.

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This is Stefanik

Donald Trump's event at Madison Square Garden was pure evil.

Trump friend David Rem called Kamala Harris the "anti-Christ,"

Businessman Grant Cardone referred to Harris' handlers as pimps which would make her a ... well, you know.

Radio personality Sid Rosenberg called Hillary Clinton a "sick son of a bitch" and he did it with gusto. He referred to Democrats as "Jew-haters and lowlifes" and concluded "The whole fucking party. A bunch of degenerates."

This is the atmosphere in which Elise Stefanik spoke.

The headline in The New York Times described the event as “misogynistic, bigoted and crude.”

New York Times reporter Maggie Astor wrote, “By the time former President Donald J. Trump took the stage at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, a parade of speakers had already spent hours disparaging Latinos, Black people, Palestinians and Jews; directing misogynistic comments at Vice President Kamala Harris; and echoing language used by the Ku Klux Klan.”

And Elise Stefanik did not condemn a word of it.

This is our representative in Congress.

Is this what you support as well?

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.