Good, normal, healthy thing for a country to have top-tier politicians assuring their audiences that if they lose an election it necessarily means cheating has occurred.

Out of context you might dismiss this as an applause line, a standard empty assurance to the party faithful that there are more of Us than there are of Them. In context it’s more sinister. Warren said this at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network Convention, explicitly blaming Stacey Abrams’s narrow defeat in Georgia last fall on voter suppression in framing her point. (There are few things Democratic candidates would profess to believe as devoutly in 2019 as that Abrams actually won.) She’s telling an audience of black Democrats that if they go to the polls and their candidate loses, it means inescapably that the other party suppressed minority votes.

Which is to say, she’s one-upped Trump. Trump spent months in 2016 blathering about illegal votes and a “rigged” system when it looked like he was destined to lose to Hillary, which is par for the course for a guy whose ego can’t bear losing a popularity contest. But Trump was referring to an election in which he was on the ballot. If you take her seriously, Warren’s describing any election. She’s encouraging millions of people to have faith in American democracy only to the extent that their side wins.

It’ll be a pleasure to watch her drop out of the race ignominiously after New Hampshire, when she finishes fifth behind Pete Buttigieg.

In lieu of an exit question, go watch the Free Beacon’s highlight reel of Democrats declaring that election trutherism is a norm-shattering threat to our civic culture circa mid-2016, three years before it became de facto party doctrine.

Sen. Warren, 2018 truther: "Massive voter suppression prevented Stacy Abrams from becoming the rightful governor of Georgia."

"They know that a durable majority of Americans believe in the promise of America & they know that if all the votes are counted, we'll win every time." pic.twitter.com/3RY7pPfAhE

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 5, 2019