Robert S. Kagan writes in the Washington Post:

[A]bout these things there should be no doubt:

First, Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. The hope and expectation that he would fade in visibility and influence have been delusional. He enjoys mammoth leads in the polls; he is building a massive campaign war chest; and at this moment the Democratic ticket looks vulnerable. Barring health problems, he is running.

Second, Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trump’s charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.

Meanwhile, the amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020.

I’ve heard through my own grapevine that the scale of the operation designed to peddle lies about the last election (and thus potentially steal the next one) is staggering in a way that hasn’t really been reported in Big Media. Meanwhile, even the Cyber Ninjas (!) say Biden won in Arizona:

A monthslong hand recount of Maricopa County’s 2020 vote confirmed that President Joe Biden won and the election was not “stolen” from former President Donald Trump, according to early versions of a report prepared for the Arizona Senate.

The three-volume report by the Cyber Ninjas, the Senate’s lead contractor, includes results that show Trump lost by a wider margin than the county’s official election results. The data in the report also confirms that U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly won in the county.

Several states will likely be planning to do what they dared not do in 2016; namely, send two slates of electors to Congress: one the result of the voters’ will, and one hand-picked by Trumpy GOP legislators. It’s a very frightening scenario and I plan to have a lot more to say about it.