Everywhere you look, signs are mounting of a tinderbox election that will test the outer bounds — and breaking points — of American democracy, honesty and civility, Axios' Zachary Basu, Erin Doherty and Sophia Cai write.

• Why it matters: A perfect storm has been brewing for years now — fueled by extreme polarization, election denial, political violence, historic prosecutions and rampant disinformation. Mayhem is bound to rain down in November.

5 conditions for chaos

1. A desperate Donald Trump:

• The former president, twice indicted for trying to overturn his 2020 loss to President Biden, repeatedly has refused to commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election — unless he wins.
• Trump has preemptively accused Democrats of "cheating" by swapping out Biden for Vice President Kamala Harris — a process he's labeled an unfair "coup" — and engaging in "lawfare" through criminal prosecution.
• Trump and his allies — especially Elon Musk — have promoted the false claim that Democrats are deliberately "importing" millions of undocumented immigrants to illegally vote in the election.
• Now a convicted felon scheduled to be sentenced after the election, Trump is in an existential fight not just for his political future — but for his personal freedom.

The latest: In a Truth Social post late Saturday, Trump decried "rampant Cheating and Skullduggery" in the 2020 election and promised "long term prison sentences" for anyone involved in "unscrupulous behavior" in 2024.

2. A nail-biter like no other:

• In the 15 presidential elections since 1964, a candidate has led by more than five points in the national polling average for at least three weeks, according to CNN data analyst Harry Enten.
• In 2024, that hasn't been the case for a single day. The race is extraordinarily close — and will come down to tens of thousands of votes in just seven battleground states.
• One nightmare recipe for chaos: A 269-269 Electoral College tie, which would trigger a contingent election in the House, whereby each state delegation casts a single vote. Trump would be likely to win in this case.

3. A battleground legal brawl:

• Republicans already have filed more than 100 lawsuits against various voting and election procedures — part of a formalized "election integrity" push grounded in Trump's baseless claims of fraud in 2020.
• Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee say they've built a network of about 175,000 volunteer poll watchers and poll workers. Democrats have assembled their own massive legal team and voter protection program as they gird for aggressive election challenges.
• Experts are especially anxious about the potential intimidation of election workers forced to count ballots under tense conditions, David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told Axios.

4. The specter of violence:

• On Jan. 6, 2021, a violent mob stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress' certification of the Electoral College results. Eight weeks ago, a gunman came within inches of assassinating Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.
• Political violence has increasingly become normalized in the U.S.: In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in May, more than two-thirds of Americans said they were concerned about extremist violence after the election.
• Top Democrats tell Axios they fear Trump will again cry "stolen election" if he loses and call for street mobilization to "take back the country" — potentially leading to multiple Jan. 6-like incidents at state capitols.

5. A cesspool of disinformation:

• Conservative-leaning cable news networks — Fox News, Newsmax, OANN — are likely to tread more carefully around baseless claims of election fraud after being sued for defamation in the aftermath of 2020.
• But on X, where pro-Trump owner Elon Musk and his allies routinely pump out conspiracy theories to their millions of followers, the information environment has deteriorated dramatically since 2020.
• Compounding the problem is the threat of election interference by foreign adversaries: An axis of disinformation helmed by Russia, China and Iran has grown more sophisticated with its influence operations.

Reality check: The whole country — from voters and political parties to Hollywood and big-box retailers — is preparing for potential chaos. That makes it more likely that the system once again will hold.

• The Electoral Count Reform Act passed by Congress, for example, added new guardrails to the process for certifying election results — ensuring the vice president has only a ceremonial role on Jan. 6.
• "While I expect that if Trump loses, he will try everything he can to do whatever is possible to seize power, he will fail," Becker told Axios. "I'm 100% confident that who actually wins the election in November is going to have their hand on the Bible in January."

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President Trump is now proposing two of the largest-ever federal arrests of people living in America, including U.S. citizens, if he's re-elected:

1. Trump, on his Truth Social platform last night, threatened to jail adversaries, including Democratic donors. "WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED" in elections of 2020 or 2024, he wrote, "will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences ... Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials."
2. Trump, asked by TIME magazine in April about his plans for the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in American history, said he has "no choice": "I don't believe this is sustainable for a country, what's happening to us, with probably 15 million and maybe as many as 20 million by the time Biden's out. Twenty million people, many of them from jails, many of them from prisons, many of them from mental institutions."

Why it matters: Trump is saying, with specificity, how he would increase the use of federal power if he returns to the White House. No need to rely on what advisers and allies say — he says it himself.

Context: Trump's public appearances have grown more erratic and incendiary, at a time when many top Republicans want him to focus more on substantive arguments against Harris.

• Trump's debate with Vice President Harris is coming up Tuesday night, and his new threat is a likely topic.

Reality check: Trump's claims of widespread fraud in 2020 have been debunked. Trump acknowledged in a Lex Fridman podcast interview posted this past week that he "lost by a whisker."

• Trump's statements about the border have been found to be exaggerated or outdated. His statements don't account for Biden administration arrests and asylum restrictions. An April report by the Department of Homeland Security estimated that 11 million unauthorized immigrants were in the U.S. in 2022.

The other side: Harris's campaign responded to the Truth Social post with a statement warning that if Trump won, he would "use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies."

Colin Gray, father of the 14-year-old charged this week in Georgia's deadliest school shooting, provided a gun to his son "with knowledge that he was threat to himself and others," authorities said in arrest warrants.

• Gray was interviewed last year when authorities were investigating his son about a menacing social media post, AP reports.

The father said the teen "knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them," according to a transcript. Nothing more was pursued.

• Gray, 54, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder in the deaths of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, a rural but fast-growing city in Atlanta's distant exurbs.

Gray's son is in custody on four counts of murder. Nine more people were wounded.

• Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said the charges against the father "are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon."

🔭 The big picture: Charging parents in school shootings is relatively new — this is the second recent high-profile case.

• The Georgia charges follow the successful prosecution this year of two parents in a school shooting north of Detroit — the first time parents were held criminally responsible in a U.S. mass school shooting.
• James and Jennifer Crumbley were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of four students at Oxford High School in 2021.

The Crumbleys, serving 10-year prison terms while appeals are pending, didn't know what their 15-year-old son was planning.

• But the prosecutor said their son's actions were foreseeable. They'd been summoned to discuss his macabre drawings on a math assignment. The Crumbleys declined to take him home but said they'd seek counseling.

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Two buzzy games we're watching today, via Axios' Maxwell Millington:

• Tennessee Titans at Chicago Bears: A new era of Bears football begins in Caleb Williams' official NFL debut against the Titans. Watch: 1 p.m. ET on Fox Sports
• L.A. Rams at Detroit Lions: The Rams' Matthew Stafford returns to Ford Field for a Sunday Night Football contest between two playoff hopefuls. Watch: 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC

And a couple big match-ups on the horizon:

• New York Jets at San Francisco 49ers: Aaron Rodgers' "Comeback Player of the Year" campaign begins against the 49ers. Watch: 8:15 p.m. ET tomorrow on ABC and ESPN.
• Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins: Miami will get an early litmus test when they host the Bills in prime time this week. Watch: 8:15 p.m. ET Thursday on CBS

More games.

President Biden's official X account, @POTUS, posted this photo of him leading a Situation Room meeting on Labor Day with Vice President Harris and the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team, after Hamas killed six hostages.

Half an hour later, Harris' official account, @VP, posted this additional photo of her speaking in the meeting — a reminder that she has a day job in addition to her campaign.

• Go deeper: Inside prep for the Harris-Trump debate, coming up Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

OpenAI is growing its revenue from businesses and institutions — and contemplating hefty price hikes for users, Axios' Megan Morrone writes.

• Why it matters: Generative AI is notoriously expensive to develop and run, and those costs rise exponentially with each new generational leap — like the one from OpenAI's GPT-4 to its long-awaited successor.

Driving the news: OpenAI said last week that it now has more than a million business users, who pay for its products like ChatGPT Enterprise, Team and Edu. That's up from 600,000 in April.

• The company told Axios they include Moderna, Morgan Stanley and Arizona State University.

But OpenAI is spending tens of billions to train and deploy its next generation of models.

• That "money incinerator" is forcing the company to look at big price increases for monthly subscribers when it rolls out the next versions of ChatGPT, The Information reports.

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A new matchmaking app wants to connect D.C. residents over a classic local hobby: being obsessed with the news, Axios D.C.'s Mimi Montgomery writes.

• How it works: The app, InPress, includes a news aggregation platform similar to Apple News, showing users a variety of articles from different outlets.

After reading an article, users share how interesting they found it and how important its topics are to them.

• This information is used to match users according to shared interests and passions.

Friction point: The algorithm doesn't weigh political interests as heavily as others when creating matches. The hope is that people will connect on quirkier, fun things.

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