Legal experts, political advisors and scholars from across the political spectrum are warning that a second term for Donald Trump could mean effectively ending democracy in America, a threat they say calls for voters putting aside their policy differences to defeat the threat of autocracy in November.

The warning came from bipartisan group of experts who gathered at New York University on Tuesday to discuss the impact a second Trump term would have on the country. The event, “Autocracy in America: a Warning and a Response,” was planned before President Joe Biden announced he was stepping down as the Democratic nominee, a decision that speakers said had upended the race for the White House.

“We’ve gone from age vs. autocracy to dictatorship vs. democracy as the theme of the next 119 days,” Norm Eisen, a legal analyst at CNN, said of Biden’s announcement.