IDENTITARIANISM AND DEMOCRACY ARE INCOMPATIBLE:

We might expect this from the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz, who embraced Trump even after he implied Cruz's wife is ugly and suggested his father was an assassin. But what about those on the "intellectual" right?

Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett, whose best-selling Book of Virtues made him rich, regularly appears on Fox News giving credence to some of Trump's wild claims of a stolen election. "I believe this election was fixed," he said this week, noting "systematic corruption" and "statistical anomalies" that made it improbable that Biden won.

Roger Kimball, who is publisher of Encounter Books and won the prestigious 2019 Bradley Prize "for advancing liberty and preserving democratic culture," has amplified claims of suspicious vote tallies in multiple jurisdictions, mostly cities with large black populations.

Leading the pack of Trump apologists, the Claremont Institute's scholars and publications have not only echoed Trump's claims of a fraudulent election, but even "testified" that the 2020 elections violated state laws and the Constitution before "hearings," which were in reality nothing more than get-togethers that Rudy Giuliani organized with a handful of state legislators.

John Eastman, a law professor who leads Claremont's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, issued a blanket claim that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin violated the Article II of the U.S. Constitution by allowing some absentee ballots to be counted in the 2020 presidential election, and that their state legislatures should, therefore, nullify the election and appoint their own slates of electors to choose the next president. Eastman praised the dubious lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general (who is currently under indictment for fraud and is accused of bribery by his top deputies), which would disenfranchise voters in those states as well--and the professor has now even filed a motion to intervene in the case for Donald Trump. The Supreme Court will decide by Thursday whether to hear the case, but the Court has already shut the door on the other conspiracy case to reach it this week, brought by Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly and a handful of other Republicans in the state.

The intellectual dishonesty here is breathtaking. For individuals and organizations that champion the rule of law and claim the mantle of the founding principles of our nation to call for overturning an election reeks of hypocrisy. It was one thing for them to advocate for so flawed a man as Trump to lead our nation. But the American people have spoken and to continue to claim that the election was stolen, that votes were fraudulently counted, is to attack the very foundations of our democratic institutions. They sow distrust in democracy itself--formerly the provenance of the far left. Politicians may fear the wrath of Trump's legion of followers if they speak out, but what is it that drives the "thinkers" like Bennett and Eastman? They should know better than to parrot insane conspiracy theories and promote specious legal arguments.

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