The Republican Mutiny and 2016 Whataboutism
No, the Republicans of 2020 are not the Democrats of 2016
Even after the Electoral College officially proclaimed Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election on December 14, Donald Trump has continued to insist that he won and that he still has a path to victory. Many Republicans, including elected officials, are continuing to play along and amplify outlandish election-fraud theories. To some “Never Trump” conservatives such as The Bulwark’s Mona Charen, this situation is a clear sign that the GOP is suffering from terminal Trumpism and cannot be saved. Yet other commentators who can hardly be classified as pro-Trump — or even compulsively anti-anti-Trump — have argued that what the Republicans are doing today is basically the same as what the Democrats did after the 2016 election.
Case in point: Noah Rothman’s December 14 Commentary post titled “The Last Time They Tried to Steal an Election.”
I should preface this by saying that I’m a fan of Rothman’s work. He generally doesn’t hold back on criticism of Trump and the Trump administration. His criticism of the Democrats and the left-of-center press is often well-deserved. On December 15, for instance, he correctly chided the media for rushing to compliment Vladimir Putin for finally acknowledging Biden’s victory on a day when breaking…
