America’s election truthers move from debunked claim to debunked claim with no loss of enthusiasm. Upon its announcement back in April, we were promised that the Arizona “audit” would blow the lid off the election scandal at last. Now that it has found nothing of consequence — despite its having been both funded and conducted by people who desperately hoped to find fraud — it has been relegated to a mere “good start.” Downplaying its findings, Representative Paul Gosar complained that the auditors “weren’t given the tools.” But how could they be? How could anyone? From the very beginning, the insistence that the 2020 election was “stolen” has been based not upon a series of falsifiable contentions, but upon the self-sustaining premise that Donald Trump must have won because Donald Trump cannot possibly have lost…

In the wake of this latest forlorn episode, it seems clearer than ever that the GOP has a choice to make. It can look to the future, outline an attractive political vision, and get ready to capitalize on the unfurling disaster that is the Biden presidency. Or it can spend its time assuaging Donald Trump’s ego, stupidly relitigating the past, and suicidally damaging the trust that its own voters have in the electoral system. Only one of these courses will lead to another Republican president. And it’s not the one that involves tin foil.