The embarrassing disaster of Jan. 6 may overshadow our hindsight of the 2020 election. But aside from Trump’s loss, those elections went extraordinarily well for Republicans, all things considered. Not only did Trump himself outperform all polls, but Republicans managed to shrink Nancy Pelosi’s control of the House to the single digits. Republicans also ended the night Nov. 3 with Mitch McConnell on the cusp of maintaining Senate control, with just the two seats in Georgia to defend in a run-off.

Although Trump had lost Georgia to Biden by 11,799 votes, David Perdue received 88,098 more votes than Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, and the combined votes of Republicans Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins outnumbered those of Democrat Rafael Warnock. It seemed like the GOP would hold on.

But rather than fight like hell to save the Senate and his legacy, Trump spent the next two months obsessively promulgating the lie that widespread election fraud had robbed him of a rightful victory. Rather than lead his party to victory, he indulged his own delusions and helped two of the least impressive Senate candidates in America, Ossoff and Warnock, win their races on Jan. 5.