Why is Donald Trump’s big lie so hard to discredit? This has been a live question for more than a year, but inside it lies another: Do Republican officials & voters actually believe Trump’s claim that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election? The unwillingness of GOP leaders to challenge Trump’s relentless lies, for whatever reason: for political survival, for mobilization of whites opposed to minorities, to curry favor, to feign populist sympathies, is as consequential as or more so than actually believing the lie. If Republicans and their voters are willing to swallow an enormous and highly consequential untruth for political gain, they have taken a first step toward becoming willing allies in the corrupt manipulation of future elections. In that sense, the big lie is a precursor to more dangerous threats — threats that are plausible in ways that less than a decade ago seemed inconceivable.
At www.nytimes.com
