The Republican Party continues to empower Trump’s election falsehoods
WASHINGTON — For all of the Democrats’ problems we’ve examined over the last few weeks – President Biden’s declining poll numbers, the progressive-versus-moderate infighting over Biden’s legislative agenda, the party’s fragile congressional majorities – there’s a more consequential problem staring at us right now.
America’s democracy is in crisis.
The former president of the United States continues to insist he didn’t lose an election in which he got 7 million fewer votes and 74 fewer electoral votes than the winner did.
“I never conceded,” Donald Trump said to cheers in Iowa Saturday night. “No reason to concede.”
That former president – 11 months after his defeat and nine months after Jan. 6 – holds a stronger-than-ever grip over his party.
“Come here… I’m thrilled to announce tonight that Sen. Chuck Grassley has my complete and total endorsement for reelection, Chuck,” Trump said Saturday night in Iowa.
“I was born at night but not last night. So if I didn’t accept the endorsement of a person who’s got 91 percent of the Republican voters in Iowa, I wouldn’t be too smart,” Grassley replied. “I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement.”
Republican Party leaders continue to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the 2020 election – the same election from which they picked up House seats.
“If you look at a number of states, they didn’t follow their state-passed laws that govern the election for president,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said on Sunday.
Base GOP voters freely invoke terms like “civil war.”
“We’re not going to take it anymore,” one woman who attended Trump’s Iowa rally told NBC News. “I see a civil war coming.”
And as Congress tries to investigate what happened on Jan. 6, Trump has instructed his former aides to ignore subpoenas from the House’s Jan. 6 Committee, as he has asserted executive privilege over documents the committee has requested.
“This committee’s fake investigation is not about January 6th any more than the Russia Hoax was about Russia,” Trump said in a statement Friday night.
Bottom line: If a losing president refuses to concede, if that same former president only gets stronger and stronger inside his party, and if many in that same party believe that Jan. 6 wasn’t a big deal, then we have a really significant problem on our hands.
Poll: Just 10 percent know “a lot” of the specifics of Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ plan
Back to the Democrats’ problems…
While a new CBS News poll finds that the major components of Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan are popular – like lowering prescription drug prices, paid family leave, universal pre-K – Americans say they don’t know a lot about the specifics of Biden’s plan.
And only a third say that Biden’s plan would help them are their families.
Per the CBS poll, just 10 percent of Americans say they know “a lot” of the specifics about Biden’s plan, another 33 percent…
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