Election Kooks Cooked

If the Republicans have any sense -- a huge if, if rumors about them seriously considering Donald Trump for Speaker of the House are true -- they will quit running in elections on the premise that the elections are "rigged."

In an election many mainstream commentators on both sides are having difficulty interpreting, one consistently good result has emerged:

Image by Tom Radetzki, via Unsplash, license.

Voters in the six major battlegrounds where Donald Trump tried to reverse his defeat in 2020 rejected election-denying candidates seeking to control their states’ election systems this year, a resounding signal that Americans have grown weary of the former president’s unfounded claims of widespread fraud.

Candidates for secretary of state in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada who had echoed Trump’s false accusations lost their contests on Tuesday, with the latter race called Saturday night. A fourth candidate never made it out of his May primary in Georgia. In Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most prominent election deniers lost his bid for governor, a job that would have given him the power to appoint the secretary of state. And in Wisconsin, an election-denying contender’s loss in the governor’s race effectively blocked a move to put election administration under partisan control.

Trump-allied Republicans mounted a concerted push this year to win a range of state and federal offices, including the once obscure office of secretary of state, which in many instances is a state’s top election official. [links omitted, bold added]

Excellent, if a bit misinterpreted: People who buy conspiracy theories practically never tire of them: The actual, news is that, as much as Trump panders to the type, (a) there aren't enough of them to win a general election, (b) normal people who don't want such people in office will show up to keep them out, or (c) some combination of both.

Most of us can breathe a big sigh of relief in the short term. In the long term, perhaps we can harbor hope that Republicans will quit screwing themselves by following Trump's lead on this manufactured issue -- and quit screwing those of us who want a serious alternative to the Democrats.

Memo to All Partisan Pundits: Just because "your guy" won doesn't mean we like him or that he necessarily deserved to win.

-- CAV