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Notes -
Actions speak louder than words is the test. It’s disappointing but within the realm of expectations for losers to be whiny, sad but occasional for a low-status politician to actually flail around in denial for a bit, but something else entirely when the top takes actions that are demonstrably motivated by impure motives and backed by hot air.
Look. If you ask Trump — and many have! — how exactly he lost, he refuses to answer. Even if you hold up someone like Stacey Abrams, who infamously refused to concede the Georgia governor race, if you asked her why… she will fucking tell you! It’s absolutely incredible that Trump will not do the same.
But Trump doesn’t really believe the “hard” version of the stolen election hypothesis (that machines were rigged, that the numbers were physically changed, that someone added +1000 to the other guy’s total and minused a thousand from his etc) and never has. He has gestured toward it on occasion, but he doesn’t believe it.
The proof is in his many recent interviews where he talks about 2020 and having ‘lost by a whisker’ or by a tiny bit or whatever. That’s not what people who believe they lost truly rigged elections say, they say they lost because the other guy hacked the voting machines or stuffed ballots or prevented his guys from voting.
I mean, that's arguably circumstantial evidence for @Ben___Garrison 's thesis that the 2020 stolen election narrative was a cynical ploy by an unscrupulous sore loser, because Trump was definitely saying the election was concretely stolen back then. He may not have believed it personally but it was useful for him to have followers who believed it. If nothing else, he needed to at least partially legitimize his attempt at a procedural coup - you can't concede that you lost and then try to subvert the outcome. And, as noted in OP, a stolen election narrative protects Trump's status in the party and in the eyes of his followers.
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