And now, a few words on this idea I’ve seen online that “letting” Democrats steal the election means we’ll never get our country back. If we believe that, we might as well pack it in now and resign our children to generations of darkness. But we shouldn't, and here's why:

1) They aren’t stealing the election, present-tense; it’s already stolen. I know lots of people still have hope, but I no longer see reason to be confident Team Trump’s current legal moves stand a realistic chance of canceling a sufficient number of votes.

2a) More importantly, it wasn’t stolen because the Left is just that insurmountably powerful; it was stolen because of specific, knowable -- and addressable -- factors:

2b)
- specific crimes & policy decisions in specific jurisdictions;
- our side—PRIMARILY TRUMP HIMSELF—not acting to *prevent* a significant amount of it;
- a candidate whose myriad negatives allowed the vote to get close enough to steal.

3a) Cleaning things up in time for the next election will be hard, especially without a Republican Justice Department (which Trump didn't use anyway). But plenty of things can still be done:

3b)
- Lawsuits can be brought even after Trump concedes. Take the fight over bogus rules to SCOTUS.

- In every state, fight like hell Democrats' attempts to turn mail-in voting from a temporary health measure into a normal, permanent facet of our electoral system.

3c)
- AZ & GA have GOP governors & legislatures; pressure them to reform.

- WI & PA have Dem governors (PA's is up in 2022, as are MI & NV's; vote 'em out before 2024!), but their GOP legislatures still have oversight & investigative power they can use to bring dirt to light.

4) The factor that is most within our power to change is also the one I know some don't wanna hear right now: put 2024 outside the margin of fraud by nominating someone who doesn't give so many voters so many reasons to dislike & distrust him, & who knows how to win more support.

5) As obvious as it is to us that Trump was the better candidate, we are not the voters on whom elections turn, & we have to be objective about thought processes other than your own. How they decide how to vote may be ignorant or shallow, but it's real, & it's not going away.

6) Of course being a crappy communicator hurts. Of course constantly saying stupid & easy-to-misconstrue things hurts. Of course character issues hurt. Of course unforced policy errors hurt. Of course foreseeable campaign strategy blunders hurt.

7) Now, maybe none of that would have mattered enough to defeat Trump in a fair fight. But we knew going in this wasn't gonna be a fair fight. Conservatives are supposed to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it was. It all contributes.

8) I've found that voicing Trump's flaws tends to invite dumb claims that I want nicer, more moderate Republicans, or to "return to the old way of doing things." Nothing could be further from the truth, and anyone who's followed me more than five minutes should know better.

9) No, I just want fighters who aren't self-destructive morons. Candidates who can hammer reporters' & politicians' lies WITHOUT generating news cycles about Joe Scarborough killing a staffer, or Ted Cruz's dad killing JFK, or Seal Team 6 killing a body double or whatever.

10) Or a candidate who didn't undermine his greatest strength, the economy, and make himself vulnerable to the Democrats' COVID narrative by letting Fauci and Birx lead him around by the nose for months, trying to split the difference between opening and lockdown.

11) Yes, contra NeverTrump, none of that crap meant we shouldn't vote for Trump. But it's also obviously true that a decent standard-bearer wouldn't have put us in the position of having to even make these points in the first place. You can't advance when constantly on defense.

12) Just imagine how nice it'd be to have a candidate whose words we didn't have to clarify every five minutes, who wasn't constantly forcing us to choose between exaggerating how good he is/pretending not to see his flaws, and making "well he's still better than" arguments.

13) The good news is that there's no reason to believe we'll have to settle next time around. Already there are multiple promising figures on the horizon -- and it's still four years away, meaning we don't know who else will rise between now and then.

14) DeSantis is doing a fantastic job in Florida. Noem is less certain, but has potential. Hawley & Cotton show promise. Cruz stumbled in 2016, but has the smarts, conservatism, debate skills, & youth for a potential comeback.

15) Hell, even the possibility of Tucker getting so fed up he jumps in can't be dismissed entirely. I still doubt he would & that he's suited for the job, but when you think about it, he's certainly not *less* qualified than the Apprentice guy was.

16) And again, we don't know who else is out there. Have those insisting we re-run Trump (or Don Jr) conducted a review of GOP governors? Do they know a newcomer won't surprise us in 2024, just like Trump surprised everyone who dismissed him in 2012? Of course not.

17) The bottom line: You're right to be mad. I'm mad too. But what matters is channeling that anger into coming back better, smarter, and stronger -- and we have the opportunity to do exactly that, to build off what worked these past four years and iron out what didn't.

18) It will be difficult. It's far from certain. A lot can still go wrong. But the only way to ensure we never get our country back is to allow one man's collapse to disillusion us into abandoning everything that doesn't orbit one deeply flawed man.