* The vast majority of Republican voters are simply Americans who don't have a clue what's happening. Many of these have high intelligence but don't follow politics. (I can sympathize: I was in my 40's and a highly-respected professional when I first started paying attention to U.S. politics.)
They know what is happening.
They KNOW Trump is a pathological liar. They don't care.
They know he tried to subvert democracy with violence.
They don't care.
They do not believe in democracy.
Because they are capitalists. Democracy and capitalism are in direct opposition.
You tellin' me that THIS GUY is a "capitalist"?
No, Unter. He's just a moron. THESE are the people who elected Trump and continue to elect fucking Nazis, believing with all their blessed hearts that they are furthering democracy and God.
Capitalists are the ones who reap vast rewards by paying the cost of convincing these idiots that they're "patriots". There are hundreds of thousands of capitalists, but tens of millions of their rubes.
]
A bit of clarification is in order. It's not a capitalism vs democracy thing. It's marks and con men vs democracy.
The people in charge of the GOP know what is happening. The voters? Not so much.
The people in charge of the GOP know that Trump is a pathological liar. His supporters? They just see the guy from "The Celebrity Apprentice."
The people in charge of the GOP know that Trump tried to subvert democracy with violence. Mitch McConnell himself - arguably the most powerful Republican other than Trump (and maybe more so) - said it out loud on the floor of the Senate.
The people in charge of the GOP do not care.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating: They know that there was no "widespread election fraud." We know they know because if there were (and they had evidence of such), they'd have brought all their not-inconsiderable guns to bear in order to prove their case. It wouldn't be just Trump's suck-ass lawyers and a pillow pitchman fighting this. It would be the entire national Grand Old Party. Why? Because if they had evidence of such widespread fraud, it would allow them to not only re-litigate the 2020 election, but destroy the Democratic Party in the process. If they could prove - in court and in the court of public opinion - that the Democrats were the "party of voter fraud," they could guarantee themselves a majority in government for at least the next generation. Nobody in their right mind would sleep on that chance.
Yet that's not what they're doing. Mitch and Kevin have settled into their roles as minority leaders, they're not bringing any court cases, and they're going on cable news talk shows implying that there were "irregularities" in the voting process, but studiously avoiding outright claims of fraud.
They're taking this path because while they know for a fact they have no chance of overturning the election, they can fool the rubes into thinking they believe as the person who farted the hole in the wall of this hovel does. Sure, a few of them might go against the grain (Liz Cheney as the voice of reason? Really?) but for the most part they're happy to have the carny continue to fool people into thinking they can win that big stuffed animal at the state fair booth. It costs them nothing to perpetuate the fraud, and that's not capitalism. Just deeply cynical politics.