Fox News: Prominent Conservatives Report Election Lost, Not Stolen

As reported by none other than Fox News, a group of prominent conservatives has published a 69-page report to the effect that the 2020 presidential election was “lost, not stolen.”

It begins:

As part of his post-election attempts to retain the presidency, Donald Trump and his supporters filed 64 cases containing 187 counts in the six key battleground states, in addition to utilizing some of the recount and contest procedures available to them under state law. The former president maintains to this day that the 2020 election was stolen and the results fraudulent.

This Report takes a hard look at the very serious charges made by Trump and his supporters. The consequences of a president and a major party candidate making such charges are monumental. If true, our electoral system is in desperate need of repair. If not true, that must be said because such false charges corrode our democracy and leave a significant share of the population doubting the legitimacy of our system, seriously weakening the country. To have 30 percent of the country lack faith in election results based on unsubstantiated claims of a “stolen” election is not sustainable in a democracy, and it discredits the political party making those charges. We hope that setting out the full record in this Report will help restore faith in the reliability of our elections.

Now, of course, the question is: What will become of all the MAGA people (a mere 30% of voters) and their seemingly indestructible belief in the Big Lie?

While Trump will never admit that he lost the election, he’s in the process of losing his legitimacy as a political actor.  Regardless of what happens to him in terms of criminal prosecution, Republicans, especially those in “purple” states, are in the process of dropping him like a hot rock.

This may be a slow process, but it’s an inexorable one.  Think of the many Fox viewers, sitting in front of their TV sets, their mouths agape, absorbing the bad news, and coming to the conclusion that they’ve been bamboozled.  Others may be a bit slower on the uptake and holding onto the QAnon belief that Donald Trump is the only truly honest politician in America.

That sad, but it’s a fact.

In any case, seeing this on Fox News is a truly stunning event.