Why Republicans are still holding on to the big lie.

Why can’t Republicans give up on the proven false claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 elections? It is a bold fabrication, easy to leave behind, but they refuse to let it go. I understand why the ex-president clings to it – everything about him demands that he be seen as a powerful winner forever. But what about people like Congressman Steve Scalise, who refused to admit that the election results were valid last weekend at ABC’s This week, or Judge Clarence Thomas, who devoted a lone and unbalanced dissent to that possibility in a Pennsylvania election case on Monday? CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, is meeting – personally, in Florida – this week, and is dedicating seven different panels to stolen elections, with titles like “Other culprits: why did the judges and the media refuse to look at the evidence” or “The left pulled the strings, covered up and even admitted” or “Protecting the elections, part VI: Failed states (PA, GA, NV, Oh my God! ) “

Why is lying so sticky to so many? Marc Ambinder of MSNBC reminds us of a great reason to persist in fiction: the lie serves the party’s ultimate goal of suppressing the votes of likely Democrats. Of course, while Trump’s own agencies have determined that this election was “the safest in history,” the record voter turnout in a pandemic means that the Republican Party’s sustainability as a political party now lies in limiting the franchise , including placing unnecessary limits on postal voting. The focus of the laser for Republican efforts at the state level now is therefore to limit voting rights. Ari Berman reported this week a new analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice, showing that in the two months that make up 2021 so far, 253 bills to restrict access to voting have been presented in 43 states, with Georgia serving as a ground zero for experiments in restricting voting by mail, voting on Sunday and adjusting Georgia’s second round rules. Despite the fact that three recounts reveal no evidence of fraud in Georgia, the big lie with his confidence in false allegations of rampant electoral fraud remains the best way to ensure that the type of person who votes for Democrats is increasingly popular. challenged in their efforts to vote going forward. As Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger explained earlier this week: “Many of these projects are reactionary to a three-month disinformation campaign that could have been avoided.”

But it is not limited to justifying the suppression of the vote. The big lie does more than just work to preserve the hope of a minority government in future electoral cycles. And it does more than just tie the GOP to Donald Trump, which is clearly the path most of them have already chosen. The big lie also serves to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency and the incredibly popular initiatives that are being implemented quickly. So, in addition to opposing the much-needed help from COVID-19 and other measures that are desperately needed, Republicans pressing the big lie serve to try to convince voters that the man who currently governs in the public interest is a usurper who is only in office. because of stolen votes. The “crime”, in this narrative, is in progress. The best way to persuade voters that they don’t want the economic and vital health care that most of them really need is to cast doubt on the person offering it to them. As long as Biden’s efforts to correct Trump’s neglect and mishandling the various crises are successful, “stopping the theft” will remain the diversion and distraction of choice.

And finally, the big lie is useful for Republicans who no longer want to govern. As long as they can say, as Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Clarence Thomas and Steve Scalise claim to be doing, that while they they themselves have no idea if the election was stolen, voters are concerned and that is all that matters, the big lie itself serves to repeat and amplify itself in ways that become true in the minds of voters. If everyone goes on to say that everyone goes on to say that the election was probably stolen, it will end up leaving the lawsuits without merit, multiple recounts and conclusions from experts in the dust. It doesn’t matter that there are people facing multiple demanding crises at the same time, people who could be helped by lawmakers who pass laws. Why govern when you can foster and fuel an ongoing crisis of faith in democracy?

One of the paradoxical lessons of the 2020 elections was that even in the face of foreign interference, postal deceleration, deliberate misinformation and the possibility of an epic collapse, millions of Americans chose not only to vote, but to believe that voting – even if it meant long ones. queues in a pandemic – it was a rational act. Even when they doubted that the election it could be managed fairly, the record number of people voted as if it were. The big lie is the mirror image of that same problem. Voters are being trained to doubt the vote until it appears to be an irrational act. Millions of Americans are hearing, day after day, by cynical liars who have no proof and no proof, that voting is useless and that – as we now hear repeatedly – the will of 74 (they say 75) million people were in some way. form frustrated allowing Biden to become president. These voters have not only lost, we are hearing, in some way, their own valid votes have also been canceled. This is the logic of the 174 Republicans who tried to annul the results of the Electoral College on January 6. It is also, unfortunately, the logic of those who invaded the Capitol, many of whom, we now discover, did not bother to vote before attempting an insurrection. Elections, they are saying, don’t matter anymore.

The big lie, then, is not just the nomenclature of those who want to restrict who can vote in the intermediate tests and in 2024. And it’s not just the language of nihilism and denial of those who want Joe Biden to fail and must feed the idea of ​​his illegitimacy to do this. The big lie isn’t just about electoral reform or undermining Democrats. It also targets the elections themselves. He suggests, as all seven CPAC panels do, not only that people of color, poor and young people in Detroit and Philadelphia cannot vote on the ballots, but also that the elections themselves are “rigged” and “fixed” and that the courts and the media and state election officials are all involved in tyranny. The aim, therefore, will not be simply to make it more difficult to vote and more challenging to govern. The end of the game is to convince voters that democracy itself is meaningless. The big lie is not just an attempt to take advantage of Donald Trump in 2024 or the mid-term Republican government. It is an attempt to sow and nurture the forces of tyranny and autocracy, just the way most big lies are intended.