Give Ben Sasse a cookie

It can be a vegan gluten-free one without sprinkles as far as I’m concerned, but “not supporting a coup based on an evidence-free paranoid conspiracy theory” counts as an act of True Statesmanship in the Republican Congressional caucus, where the grading is now on a Harvard College-style curve.

The president and his allies are playing with fire. They have been asking – first the courts, then state legislatures, now the Congress – to overturn the results of a presidential election. They have unsuccessfully called on judges and are now calling on federal officeholders to invalidate millions and millions of votes. If you make big claims, you had better have the evidence. But the president doesn’t and neither do the institutional arsonist members of Congress who will object to the Electoral College vote.

Let’s be clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But they’re wrong – and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.

Sasse or more realistically his staff does provide a useful point by point debunking of the many ludicrous electoral fraud claims put forth by the Trump scream machine.

Predictably he lards all this up with a bunch of Both Sides nonsense, but again we’re grading on a super generous curve, so props to him for at least trying to secure John McCain’s currently vacant Last Honest Man in Washington media sinecure.