NYT "Republicans Supporting Trump, Remember: Lies Have a Long Half-Life"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/opinion/trump-election-lies.html

The president’s actions are disgraceful and damaging to our democracy.

By The Editorial Board

“I WON THE ELECTION!” President Trump lied on Twitter on Sunday — as he has done over and over again since Joe Biden was declared the winner this month.

Voters gave Mr. Biden the highest margin of victory in a two-person race against a sitting president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. He is on track to win 306 electoral votes and to win the popular vote by around seven million ballots.

“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time?” a senior Republican official asked The Washington Post last week, referring to Mr. Trump. “No one seriously thinks the results will change.”

The downsides?

Lies have a long half-life, and Mr. Trump’s misinformation campaign will undermine the democratic legitimacy of the Biden administration. About half of all Republicans surveyed by a new Reuters/Ipsos poll said they believed that Mr. Trump had rightfully won the election. A poll from Monmouth University released Wednesday found that 77 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters believe Mr. Biden won through fraud.

Mr. Trump is doing this with the help of nearly all of the national Republican leaders, who continue to show loyalty to the president at the expense of the nation. It is a pathetic display of cowardice to stand aside and watch as a sitting president salts American soil. Their actions stand in contrast to that of many Republicans at the state level, including the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who have shown their courage and patriotism in the conduct of their official election duties.


snip

When Mr. Trump said the election was rigged, it apparently meant that he was trying to rig it by suppressing votes, preventing them from being counted and now trying to overturn the counts in court. An analysis from The Washington Post found that Mr. Trump and his allies have sought to throw out nearly one in 10 votes cast in states that decided the election. It is all too easy to imagine similar tactics becoming standard fare in future national, state and local elections.

Mr. Trump already has persuaded millions of people to disregard the dangers of the coronavirus and has made refusing to wear masks a point of pride for his supporters. Imagine what will happen when more Americans share his contempt for democracy.



sorry about the paywall

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. In the "United States of Amnesia"? One can hope..... nt