No one in their right mind believes that Donald Trump will still be president come January 20. This is not Bush v. Gore. In that instance, the candidates were separated by barely 1,000 votes in a single state. Trump, in contrast, has lost the electoral college by tens of thousands of votes across several states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and as of right now, Arizona. And yet, many Trump boosters, including intelligent and formerly respectable conservatives such as Newt Gingrich, are making the rounds insisting that Biden’s leads are the result of voter fraud. Gingrich says that Republican poll-watchers have been denied access to the locations where ballots are being counted. This is demonstrably false.

So if these dangerous claims are being made not because their proselytizers believe them to be true, why are they being made? To quote a Sith lord: “All those who gain power are afraid to lose it.” A certain kind of conservative has made Donald Trump the focal point of his politics. For four years, that has been an enormously profitable move professionally. Now that the end of that era draws near, they fear that the people they mocked as RINOs and dismissed as weaklings may have a resurgent voice in the Republican party.

To be successful, as Dan McLaughlin has rightfully observed, the two GOPs must unite. That will be impossible as long as parts of the Trumpist contingent continue to do serious harm to both the conservative movement and the country in an effort to conserve only their own power.

You Might Like