These outlandish what ifs are packaged to look like they’re for the enlightenment of viewers, but allow me to go out on a limb and suggest they are really meant to comfort the speaker. They’re meant to reassure the storyteller that the election was a glitch, that their politics are actually very attractive, and the reason things didn’t go their way in 2016 is because they’re the victims of a vast conspiracy of collusion, treason, foreign intrigue, etc.

After all, Reid is not the only progressive in media indulging in these master puppeteer fantasies.

It has been 14 months since Trump was sworn in as president. Time hasn’t worn down the people most shocked by the GOP victory. On the contrary, it seems like it has only made them wilder and more desperate to expose the supposed truth behind who is really running the show.

Progressive politics didn’t lose the White House, you see. The Russians “hacked the election.”