The Big Lie is the central litmus test for Republicans running for office
The right will have to decide whether It believes in liberal democracy
On December 14th, 2020, the New York Times published a story that posed the question “What’s Next for Trump Voters Who Believe the Election Was Stolen?”
The author, Sabrina Tavernise, wrote “What happens next is a critical question for American democracy. …
What will become of the belief that the 2020 presidential election was in some way illegitimate? Will it melt away along with Mr. Trump’s prospects for winning, and vanish completely when Mr. Biden is inaugurated? Or will it fester, nursed by Republicans in power, and metastasize into something that could be a rallying cry for nationalists for years to come?
It is the perception — often more than the reality — that matters, said Keith A. Darden, a political science professor at American University in Washington. “If enough people believe that a government is not elected legitimately, that’s a huge problem for democracy,” he said.
It is a huge problem in part because it can increase instability and the chance of violence. We saw both c…
