Day is done . . .

From Trump Has Gone Nuts by John Hinderaker.  Much to dislike about this column but I agree with this sentiment.

President Trump is right in saying that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud. I think he is quite likely right, although no one knows for sure, in alleging that absent fraud he would have been re-elected. But his conduct has nevertheless become indefensible.

[snip]

At this point, it is blindingly obvious that Trump has no pathway to victory. To the extent that Democrats committed or enabled voter fraud, they have done so successfully. There never was a plausible way to challenge the certified results in any state in the 60+ days between the election and the inauguration. Whether fraud occurred, sufficient to reverse an apparent result in any state, is a complicated question of fact that would require months, if not years, to litigate fairly.

Battles in support of election integrity needed to be fought in advance of the election, not afterward, when it is too late.  

 I come to this from the perspective that both the Democratic and Republican national parties are hostage to the establishment members of the nation and that their disagreements with one another are minimal compared to their dislike for the 80%.  The Republicans, owing to Gingrich and the Tea Party and then Trump, are somewhat more chastened by realization that the 80% exists and needs to be served and therefore marginally more acceptable.

But neither national party seems committed to the classical liberal positions and Age of Enlightenment ethos which has made this country great and delivered astonishing freedom and prosperity to our own people and the world.

Trump has been far better for all citizens than any recent president.  The top 40% did well in the stock market and the bottom 60% did well with employment growth and income growth for the first time in a couple of decades at least.  Minorities recorded their highest levels of employment and income ever.

But he has had his weaknesses and his blindspots.  The same determination and resistance to past practice and expert opinion which has made Operation Warp Speed a success are the very traits leading him into an isolated corner.  His unfailing instinct to always fight back against establishment indulgences also leads him astray.

Hinderaker is right.  Something is almost certainly wrong with the most recent election.  Too many sudden and last minute events such as refusal to clean the polls, absent of public oversight, technology questions, vote harvesting, abandonment of signature matching, singular focus on increasing vote access and abandonment of attention to vote security are all tells.  

Cumulatively or even collectively would the result have been different?  I suspect so.  

But Hinderaker is on the mark when he says "Battles in support of election integrity needed to be fought in advance of the election, not afterward."  I was surprised that there was so little preparation on that front and I expect that Trump will be a single term president for not having focused in advance.  

It is a national tragedy and rends at the fabric of the nation, but Trump's instincts which have yielded him so many improbable victories beneficial to the nation's well-being - no new wars, revitalizing the military, restoring the border, peace in the Middle East, no major foreign terrorist attacks, record employment, record income increases for the poorest, Operation Warp Speed - are the very instincts which threaten the nation now in his resistance to a highly debatable election outcome.  

He has fought the good fight but now it is time to smooth the transition.  And perhaps to lay the groundwork for some movement to ensure that the 80% of the nation still living by classical liberal values are better represented in the nation's governance alongside the self-interested 20% establishment working to mutual benefit across party lines.