Viewpoint: In Pennsylvania, indulging in a dangerous delusion

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of Butler, carrying an American-flag print polo shirt, referred to as the election “the best theft in American historical past.” Jim Bognet, a candidate for the eighth Congressional District close to Scranton, claimed that he was personally robbed of victory in 2020 when his 10,000-vote lead evaporated. And Stacy Garrity, the present treasurer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, mentioned of the defeated forty fifth president, “We all know that he received.”

No, we don’t. We all know he misplaced.

It was an embarrassing spectacle at Trump’s rally as these influential leaders groveled to stay in his good graces. However mendacity concerning the election is greater than that: It nurtures a delusion that threatens the very foundations of the American political system.

Orderly transitions of energy are one of the essential — and most difficult — assessments of a political system. Many individuals have believed in democracy till they misplaced. Disputes about who’s rightfully in cost have initiated a number of the most damaging conflicts in historical past. In reality, they’re one of many major causes of the weakening and collapse of nice empires, from the traditional world to the fashionable age.

For this reason one of the harmful moments in American historical past occurred in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republicans defeated incumbent John Adams of the Federalists. It was the primary transition of energy from one faction to a different and will have damaged the younger republic. Jefferson assumed energy with out main incident. We’re nonetheless right here as a nation as a result of the losers accepted shedding.

Each time politicians — particularly sitting officers — endorse the stolen-election fantasy, they injury their very own credibility. However additionally they, satirically, undermine the political way forward for Trump himself, whose unseemly obsession with 2020 isn’t shared by the citizens he wishes to woo yet one more time.

Worse, when sitting political officers like Kelly and Garrity query who the rightful president is, they undermine an ideal and crucial American custom. They usually lay the inspiration for each election to end in Jan. Sixth-style tumult.

However most significantly, they blast out one of many largest items of the inspiration of the American republic.