Donald Trump has hitched his 2024 campaign for president on denial that he was the loser in November 2020. This is a lie. He lost by millions of votes and Biden defeated him in the Electoral College.
Trump's Department of Homeland Security reported that, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history." Bill Barr, Trump's attorney general, concluded after the election, "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election." Furthermore, of the 62 lawsuits filed by January 6, 2021, Trump lost 61; the lone victory, a small one in Pennsylvania, didn't change his loss there.
The Big Lie has been oft repeated by many MAGA fanatics. The My Pillow Guy, Mike Lindell, has been among the most clamorous liars, going so far as to offer a $5 million prize to anyone who could prove him wrong. Someone did: a cybersecurity expert (who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020). Lindell doesn't want to pay up, but less than two weeks ago, a court ordered him to do so.
Last month a prominent election denying group, Georgia's True the Vote, admitted in court that, contrary to its claims that it could prove voter fraud, it had no evidence at all to establish this falsehood. True the Vote's lie was the basis of Dinesh D'Souza's "2000 Mules," his fraudulent 'documentary.'
Keri Lake, who continues to promote Trump's lie about 2020 also continues to deny her 2022 defeat for governor of Arizona. Steve Bannon, who acknowledged before the November 2020 election that Trump would claim voter fraud, also continues to promote Trump's 2020 lie. At CPAC last week, Bannon ranted that Joe Biden is "an illegitimate regime-head. He's a usurper . . . ." He was just getting warmed up. After pronouncing Donald Trump as among the three greatest presidents in U.S. history (with Washington and Lincoln), who is destined to "drive the vermin out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," he declared: "Biden, you and your crime family are nothing but trash, okay."
But Bannon has also followed Lake in denying another, more recent GOP defeat. Last month a Democrat won the special election in New York to replace Republican fabulist George Santos. This election result was entirely uncontroversial. There is no evidence of fraud. There were no claims of fraud, until Bannon, who spun a conspiracy theory to deny the result: "They stole this election in New York."
Why the lies? Because election denialism -- expressed again and again in strident terms; not just about one election, but about election after election when the GOP loses -- is critical to the authoritarian project, in which Bannon plays a leading role. He is in the vanguard of the white nationalist movement to bring down democracy.
The continual stream of lies riles up the base. Many MAGA adherents are sealed within an information bubble so they may actually believe the lies, while others don't bother with truth or falsity, they're just onboard with the fight. The lies delegitimize MAGA opponents: the "vermin," the "trash." Democratic victors are "illegitimate," "usurpers." But there's something else more fundamental:
Elections themselves are delegitimized. When the GOP loses, that's proof of fraud, of a rigged outcome, of being cheated out of victory. And proof as well that the opposition is vile, unworthy of respect, deserving the contempt that MAGA leaders heap on them. Delegitimizing elections serves to dehumanize political opponents.
Democracy depends on losers agreeing that they lost, fair and square. Accepting defeat, but striving to win the next time around. Democracy depends on regarding ones opponents as fellow Americans with whom one has differences, not as vermin or trash.
Free and fair elections are the coin of the realm for democratic governance. Deny legitimacy, refuse to concede defeat, and democracy loses. Trump, Lake, Bannon and other MAGA leaders spread their lies to undermine trust in elections.
When an angry faction of Americans loses trust in elections, then they are more likely to find recourse in illegal, even violent action. That's one lesson of January 6. It's a lesson that hasn't been lost on the evangelists of election denialism. These tribal leaders are paving the way to violence.