Timothy Noah writes:

Trump did not win his war on American institutions; he lost reelection. He went to truly appalling lengths to try to overturn the results, but he never got close. He and his allies filed 62 lawsuits. They won exactly one, a minor scuffle in Pennsylvania over whether voters could provide necessary identification after, rather than before, they mailed in their ballots. Not a single electoral ballot was changed. Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution tallied pro-Trump votes among individual Republican-affiliated judges in state courts and found they numbered 26, against 49 anti-Trump votes. None of these few pro-Trump votes prevailed. That’s why Trump resorted to supporting a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. Trump’s irresponsible incitement before the riot and his refusal to stop it after it began remains a scandal for which he must be held accountable. Seven people died, including three police officers, and 150 police were injured. It was horrific. But nobody for a moment believed the attack would prevent the proper counting of electoral ballots, and as I wrote in November, the January 6 defendants, now babbling to judges about how sorry they are and how they were duped, are an insult to the very idea of revolution.

Since then, Trump’s been up to considerable mischief, prompting a Politico headline that names him (with an excess of tact) “The Most Consequential Former President Ever.” He’s targeting state election officials who failed to support his false election claims and has gotten some removed. According to NPR, at least 15 Republican candidates for secretary of state in 2022 question the legitimacy of Biden’s presidential victory. As Gellman notes, 16 states have introduced bills that would shift authority over elections from the executive to the legislative branch, potentially enabling state legislatures to substitute their own favored slates of electors in a presidential election. And last year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 19 states enacted 33 laws that limit ballot access, targeted typically at African Americans and other Democratic constituencies.

But all these assaults against democracy are a sign of Republican weakness, not Republican strength, and they’re mostly being waged in inhospitable venues: the courts and the ballot box. [Continue reading…]