Republicans pushing voter fraud conspiracies know they're meritless — but are just trying to make Trump feel better: columnist

On Monday, writing for The Washington Post, columnist Greg Sargent outlined how Republicans are pushing conspiracy theories about voter fraud that they know will collapse in court — just so that President Donald Trump has the time and space to process his loss.

"Republicans know the legal battle won’t succeed. Biden’s margins are far too large to be overcome by litigation (he’s up more than 45,000 votes in Pennsylvania, more than 20,000 in Wisconsin, nearly 150,000 in Michigan, and more than 10,000 even in Georgia)," wrote Sargent. "And on many fronts, these legal efforts are already falling apart. Indeed, the Associated Press reports that senior officials and allies privately admit that claims of large-scale voter fraud — the basis for efforts to overturn the results — aren’t actually meant to be proved."

"That’s extraordinary: Trump allies are claiming in many high-profile forums that the lawfully cast votes of millions of Americans are illegitimate, largely to create space for him to process his rage and grief over losing," wrote Sargent. "All this sets up another possibility. With Trump unlikely to formally concede, you can see a kind of Lost Cause of Trumpism mythology taking hold, in which many supporters continue believing the election was stolen from him and that squeamish Republicans betrayed him by not fighting hard enough against it."

Some of the president's lawsuits are still pending, although many have already been rejected.