We have received a small stream of emails from readers and noted a few comments calling us out for not “standing with” President Trump and disparaging our manhood as well — this because we have not decried the “rigged” election that robbed President Trump of reelection. One professed long-time reader sent us a message announcing that he has “resigned” from the site.
I particularly appreciate the imputation of cowardice to us by commenters writing from behind brave pseudonyms. It mitigates the sting. It’s almost funny.
The criticism is directed at all four of us, so I don’t take it personally. My favorite so far is the one that decried us as a limp noodle, although that one may in fact have been addressed to me. In any case, I want to adopt it as my own and turn it to my own use. It doesn’t quite have the crackle of “Cocaine Mitch,” but it’s got the vulgar intimation going for it.
I’m not clear on what it means to “stand with” President Trump. I want to “stand with” President Trump. It certainly wouldn’t cost me anything personally to “stand with” him. Writing for Power Line, I would find it easier to fall into line with President Trump than to stand my ground with my fellow limp noodles.
Indeed, I am still going through the stages of grief over President Trump’s failure to prevail in the election. I have moved beyond denial to anger. If you want restatement and elaboration of the claims of “rigging” and “fraud” made by President Trump, you have had to go elsewhere, perhaps to sites that announce the latest revelations in caps and use exclamation points to emphasize them. We have fallen short.
I have expressed my own sympathy with the claim of fraud in general and my skepticism of the specifics of the fraud claims in posts including “A conspiracy so immense” and “What is to be done?”
The Trump litigation has proven a bust. Indeed, most recently, in the Wisconsin federal district decision held over the weekend, the Trump legal team entered into an agreed statement of facts and declined to call a single witness. Called to put their cards on the table, the Trump team all but folded. The court’s decision rejecting President Trump’s claims is posted online here. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on it here.
Sidney Powell and Lin Wood in particular have prompted me to recall Eric Hoffer’s observation: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Hoffer’s observation has been echoing in my mind over the past few weeks.
In my post “Exit Sidney Powell,” I observed following the 90–minute Michigan press conference conducted by Rudy Giuliani with the Trump legal team that it was time for ardent conservative supporters of President Trump, of whom I am one, to let the reality principle intrude.
I nevertheless believe that fraud substantially affected the outcome of the election in the system of absentee balloting that was adopted all over the country. It is a system that facilitates fraud and appears to have been exploited for this purpose in states such as Pennsylvania and perhaps Georgia. Kim Strassel wrote about it in the November 12 Wall Street Journal column Harvesting the 2020 election.” (She also anticipated it in her January 2019 column “Harvesting Democratic votes.”)
We have already benefited from the discussion of the “anomalies” in this election by the Democracy Institute’s Patrick Basham. Basham’s Spectator USA column is accessible here. In coming days I think it likely that we will see sophisticated statistical analyses supporting the suspicion that the anomalies derive from the fraud facilitated by the absentee ballot set-up.
Whether or not I have that right, it provides the answer to the question of what is to be done. We have to do everything in our power to make sure it never happens again and to return as closely as possible to the tradition of holding our elections on election day.
