We no longer have to worry about a disgraced ex-president who decisively lost both the popular and electoral vote working behind the scenes to undermine our democracy, because it’s happening right in front of our eyes. Indeed, the embankment of hibernating 30-year-old clones I keep in my bespoke survival bunker for that inevitable day when my ear hair grows out of control and I need an emergency ear transplant would be shocked to learn what’s been happening in this country over the past several years—and what it’s led to.

Donald Trump will try to steal the 2024 election—just as he tried in 2020—if he sees enough daylight in front of him to encourage his open corruption. Those of us who were shocked to our core over the events of Jan. 6, 2020 are equally as shocked to see the recent (and dogged) PR campaign to minimize the insurrection and pass it off as a rowdy pep rally for representative democracy.

We’re also shocked about Republicans’—and two “moderate” Democratic senators’—lack of concern for voting rights. Sadly, some days it feels like we’re slouching toward fascism no matter what we do—and every day it feels like white people’s fear and grievances simply trump the truth in the GOP and elsewhere.

So shit like this, which was deemed (un)important enough to appear nearly 50 paragraphs into Politico’s daily Playbook, feels like it should be highlighted far more often and more stridently. An ex-president who tried to steal one election and is meticulously laying the groundwork for another attempted coup? Sure, that sounds like a fun, newsy little nugget. Let’s cram it in there somewhere between “Marmaduke” and the Jumble:

“Republican leadership should never have certified the election on January 6, and now Democrats will never stop their assault on America,” Trump wrote. “I hope you find this book informative and encouraging in your battle for the heart of our Nation.”

While Kevin McCarthy led more than 100 House Republicans in objecting to the election that day, the GOP leader has been trying to pivot away from 2020 and focus on Biden ahead of the midterms. But as a House GOP aide who tipped us off said, Trump’s gift is the latest sign that the leader of the party doesn’t want that and expects House Republicans to fall in line.

As the House GOP aide who spoke with Playbook noted, this “just shows how Trump is continuing to pressure members/Republicans to embrace the Big Lie.”

Gee, ya think?

Of course, what shocked us one, two, five, or 10 years ago now seems shockingly quotidian. A sitting president working the refs to reverse his losses in key battleground states is beyond alarming if you believe in democracy even a little, and yet Donald Trump has continued to transgress against core American values since his failed Bumblefuck Putsch. Over and over again, he’s backing candidates who supported his coup efforts and seeking to punish those who stood up to his grotesquely anti-American actions in the wake of the 2020 election. 

In other words, this is serious, serious business, as many alarmed observers continue to point out:

Depending on what the House Jan. 6 committee uncovers, the GOP’s fealty to Trump could end up becoming either an albatross or an accelerant that hastens our democracy’s demise. I’m hopeful that good and truth will prevail, but I wouldn’t necessarily bet the farm on it, particularly if the media keeps putting the story of the decade on the back burner.

Trump is trying to bring as many Big Lie proponents into the fold as he can, and controlling GOP House members, 147 of whom voted to challenge lawful slates of electors in 2020, would be a big boost to his efforts. Think he won’t make the same overtures to state legislators? Trump knows which safeguards kept him from stealing the White House in 2021, and he’s been chipping away at them with a jackhammer ever since.

We really need to call him out every time he does it. And not just with a chuckle and an “aw, shucks, there he goes again.”

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