CNN: “Donald Trump has set the price of admission for Republicans in the midterm elections, and probably the next presidential race: an embrace of the big lie that he was cheated out of office by a historic voter fraud operation. The former President’s effort to turn 2022 polls into a personal revenge mission and to replenish his personality cult got a big boost Monday when a comrade-in-arms, Rep. Mo Brooks, launched an Alabama US Senate run. Brooks is the latest Republican to seek to leverage his efforts to thwart a democratic election as a springboard for higher office. He led a push in the House to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory after telling Trump supporters at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally that turned into the Capitol insurrection on January 6: ‘Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.’ Even Brooks admitted Monday that his campaign launch rally in Huntsville, Alabama, would not be quite so hyper. But he built the foundation for his run on proven falsehoods just the same.”

“Other outspoken pro-Trump Republican candidates are considering or have launched Senate campaigns in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania where more GOP incumbents are retiring. Proteges of the ex-President are lining up challenges against some of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him for inciting an unprecedented and deadly insurrection designed to destroy basic US democratic principles. The former President signaled to potential GOP candidates the price of his endorsement when he reemerged at the Conservative Political Action Conference this month, where he warned that Republicans needed to back an end to mail-in voting and called out GOP lawmakers who had voted to impeach him by name. The former President’s shadow in 2022 will ensure that yet another election will be dominated by his pernicious claims that voting in America is corrupt – with all the consequent damage to US democracy that brings.”