Jonathan Bernstein: “I’m hardly the first to say this, but one thing remains clear about Donald Trump as a politician: No one has more contempt for his supporters than the president himself and those around him. Trump is currently taking his allies through a crash course in disdain for democracy. He’s inventing, repeating or embellishing entirely false accusations about fraud. He’s asking the courts to toss out hundreds of thousands of legal votes for basically no reason. He’s demanding that the election results be overturned altogether by Republican officials — judges in some cases, election administrators in others, or even state legislators in an extreme scenario. It could hardly be more unconstitutional and undemocratic. Oh, and it’s entirely impractical: Trump’s legal and political strategies have no realistic chance of working.”

“It’s clear that most of the Republicans who are going along with Trump know full well that he’s lost. Plenty of White House aides are sending out their resumes. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told allies in Congress to ask now if there’s anything they want before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Republican senators were seen congratulating Vice President-elect Kamala Harris when she stopped back in to cast a vote on Tuesday. That vote was only held in the first place to prevent Biden from filling a key vacancy. Republicans campaigning in the Georgia Senate runoffs keep tripping over themselves as they try to elide the awkward fact that they’re going to need 51 seats for a majority next year and not 50 — because they know that Harris, and not outgoing Vice President Mike Pence, will be the tie-breaking vote come Jan. 20.”