The 30% Factor

When all of the ballots are counted, the best estimates suggest that about 160 election deniers — all of them Republicans — will have a seat in the new Congress. That is roughly 30 percent of the seats in the House and Senate combined and better than half of the entire GOP caucus.

This group represents a clear and present danger. The rise of authoritarianism in Europe in the 1930s came about when minority parties such as the Nazis manipulated national political systems to claw their way into power.

That could happen here. 

But politicians are opportunists, in both the good and bad senses of that term. They are ambitious and when they sense an opportunity to move up the feeding chain they seize it.

So now they are in office, should Trump’s political fortunes continue to fall, some of these election deniers may choose to stop talking about 2020 and begin to edge away from a position is proving to be ineffective nationally, though it remains popular within their constituencies.

Those politicians with national ambitions may start to distance themselves from Trump, just like the leading Republican contenders for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024 are already doing. It is no mystery why Trump is viciously attacking DeSantis and Pence. They no longer are dancing to his authoritarian tune but are returning to more conventional conservative positions in the hope of moving up if and when Trump fades from the scene.

My hunch is that over the next session of Congress roughly half of the election deniers will let go of the myth that the 2020 election was stolen because it no longer is playing well and won’t suit their purposes going forward.

They will evolve.

Those that remain fiercely loyal to Trump and his Big Lie will still compose a potent minority that will cause the Republican Party leadership and the country all kinds of headaches over the coming two years.

But with Democrats holding the White House, the Senate and many statehouses, this extremist minority’s ability to damage the republic can be confined — as long as reason continues to prevail in American political life as it did in the midterm elections this month.

That is our hope for preserving and repairing the badly tattered public trust that is Trump’s heinous legacy. We will have to endure at least two more years of absurd claims and dangerous rhetoric, extreme positions and propagation of conspiracy theories.

But if we can make it through that period with our democracy intact, an opportunity to rebuild and strengthen this country may emerge once again. 

NEWSLINKS:

• Democrat Katie Hobbs defeats MAGA favorite Kari Lake in high-stakes race for governor in Arizona (NBC)

• Biden and Xi try to avoid a new Cold War, even if all isn’t ‘kumbaya’ (CNN)

• Biden and Xi finally meet again against a backdrop of high tensions (WP)

• A Dangerous Game Over Taiwan (New Yorker)

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden met for long-awaited talks that come as relations between their countries are at their lowest in decades, marred by disagreements over a host of issues from Taiwan to trade. The two, holding their first in-person talks since Biden became president, met on the Indonesian island of Bali ahead of a G20 summit. (Reuters)

• Democrats Triumphant After Sealing Senate Majority For The Rest Of President Biden’s First Term (NBC)

• In Nevada, one more victory for the ‘Reid machine’ over ‘Team Mitch’ (WP)

• Extremists in Uniform Put the Nation at Risk (Edit Bd/NYT)

• House GOP presses toward leadership elections despite post-midterm disarray (Politico)

• Democrats’ Senate Victory Hands Biden a Critical Guardrail Against the G.O.P. (NYT)

• Congress returns after the 2022 midterm election with a hectic year-end agenda (NBC)

• Legal peril for Biden’s student debt relief prompts calls to extend payment pause (Politico)

• Democrats in Congress aim to pass bills protecting same-sex marriage, clarifying lawmakers' role in certifying presidential elections and raising the nation's debt ceiling when they return from the campaign trail today. They will look to make the most they can of their current thin majorities in both chambers before the new Congress is sworn in on January 3. (Reuters)

• Rank-and-file Republicans are blaming congressional leaders for the GOP's limp election performance. Right-wing media is turning on Trump, who went into a meltdown of furious attacks on potential 2024 rivals. Some Senate Republicans are delaying a decision on whether Mitch McConnell should continue to lead them. Welcome to post-election GOP grudge-settling. [HuffPost]

• Trump Wanted I.R.S. Investigations of Foes, Top Aide Says (NYT)

• Pence: Trump ‘decided to be part of the problem’ on Jan. 6 (The Hill)

• Investigators see ego, not money, as Trump’s motive on classified papers (WP)

• Extreme Candidates and Positions Came Back to Bite in Midterms (NYT)

• How to Fight Fascism Before It’s Too Late (Atlantic)

• The next Congress will have at least 160 election deniers, according to Jennifer Bendery's latest count. Democrats fear the wild possibility that those extremists could install Trump as speaker of the House. [HuffPost]

• Court files show evidence Trump handled records marked classified after presidency (Guardian)

• The landscape of Newsom’s next term (Politico)

• An Emboldened Biden Now Faces a Tough Choice About His Own Future (NYT)

• Ukraine war: 'Long and difficult path' ahead - Zelensky in Kherson (BBC)

• Afghan supreme leader orders full implementation of sharia law (Guardian)

• Turkey blamed Kurdish militants for an explosion that killed six peopleon a busy Istanbul shopping street, and police detained a Syrian woman suspected of having planted the bomb among a sweep of 47 arrests. (Reuters)

• Musk’s latest Twitter cuts: Outsourced content moderators (AP)

• Amazon reportedly plans to lay off about 10,000 employees starting this week (CNBC)

• Layoff spree in Silicon Valley spells end of an era for Big Tech (WP)

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall sends shockwaves through crypto (AP)

• UVA shooting: 3 football players killed, 2 students wounded and suspect in custody (CBS)

• 4 Idaho college students found dead in apparent homicide, officials say (ABC)

• Remnants of Ancient Earth-Like World Seen Being Eaten by a Star (ScienceAlert)

• Dolly Parton gets $100 million from Jeff Bezos to spend on charity (NPR)

• Jeff Bezos says he will give away most of his massive fortune (WP)

• Small Study Shows Money Can Buy Happiness For Households Earning Up To $123,000 (The Onion)