As with many news items in the Donald Trump era, we must file this under "shocking, not surprising": People who are being interviewed by the newly Trump-controlled Republican National Committee (RNC) report that they're being asked if they "believe" President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. This is after Trump installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as a co-chair of the RNC and she vowed to use the committee's funds to pay Trump's legal bills. (She's now denying that is the plan, even though documentation shows that the fundraising agreement between Trump and the RNC does, in fact, prioritize paying Trump's legal bills over funding the party.) Under Lara Trump's leadership, there has already been a staff purge, no doubt, as these reports show, to re-staff the RNC with people who are willing to back Trump's lies about the 2020 election.
Grim stuff, watching the already-radicalized GOP lose any remaining shreds of pro-democratic sentiment and hardening into what can only be seen as a fascist party. There is a silver lining, however. There's good reason to believe Trump's strategy of going all-in on election denial will backfire. Under Trump's leadership, Republicans made conspiracy theories about voter fraud the centerpiece of their campaigns in 2020 and 2022. In both, they lost major elections they could have won. There's little reason to think voters will be more fond of the madness going into 2024.
