RUTHFULLY YOURS

A lot of GOP establishment types would like President Trump to stop speaking out against election fraud. They claim it endangers Republican control of the Senate.

There’s no question that Schumer and the Democrats taking over the Senate would be the worst days of Obama’s first two years brought to life again. And then some. Democrats have embraced dreams of packing the Senate and the Supreme Court to create a one-party state. And with at least some Republican senators amenable to their proposals, like statehood for Puerto Rico, it wouldn’t take much for Democrats to come within spitting distance of a one-party state.

President Trump knows that.

It’s why he and Don Jr. have made campaigning in Georgia a priority. And while there have been assorted grifters and Democrat operatives pretending to be Trump supporters who have called for a boycott of the Senate race, or writing in Trump’s name, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want that.

And that doesn’t conflict with a fight against election fraud. It’s possible to fight election fraud and fight for the Senate.

Some people on both sides of the issue seem to have problems with that, but strategy isn’t black and white. Political battles are fought on multiple fronts. Some conservatives have fallen into the conviction that elections are now unwinnable. They’re not. Election fraud is not a new problem. President Trump won in 2016 despite it. Some of the claims of election fraud have led some conservatives to believe that election fraud is an omnipotent force that can rig any election.

It’s not. Otherwise, Democrats would have taken the Senate free and clear, and expanded their lead in the House, instead of shedding seats.

Conservatives should be doing a better job of speaking out about that. And conservatives who decide not to vote, like Never Trumpers, are electing Democrats.

But to be clear, the problem isn’t that there are voter fraud claims, it’s that there is fraud. The fraud is structural. The pandemic has enabled it. And Georgia is going into another election with the same drop boxes and torrent of ballot harvesting. These elements are not an omnipotent force, Republican voters can overcome them.

But conservatives should not be in the position of having to field far more voters than the other side just to overcome escalating fraud margins.

Georgia’s structural shift is largely due to Democrats, especially Stacey Abrams, building an organization and making enough noise. The only way it will change is if conservatives push back hard enough and demand their own structural changes.