“I don't get it. All these other Republicans, all over the country, they all win their races. And I'm the only guy that loses?”

-- Pres. Donald Trump during a meeting with Michigan lawmakers last week, as reported in Tim Alberta's must-read piece, “The Inside Story of Michigan's Fake Voter Fraud Scandal,” on Politico. The subtitle is “How a state that was never in doubt became a 'national embarrassment' and a symbol of the Republican Party's fealty to Donald Trump,” and that's exactly it, and it is an embarassment; and we only escaped a more extended constitutional crisis because one GOP official, Aaron Van Langevelde, had the guts to do his job and essentially tell Donald Trump he had no clothes. The others? Pretending his evidence-less charges of voter fraud had validity, and that he won in a landslide an election he lost by 6 million votes. (More on Van Langeveld via Charles Pierce.)

Alberta writes: “Republicans here—from Ronna Romney McDaniel to Laura Cox to federal and local lawmakers—knew it was a lie. But they didn't lift a finger in protest as the president disparaged Michigan and subverted America's democratic norms. Why?” The short answer is “career ambition.” If you had it, and you wanted to stay with the GOP, you went along with the crazy. 

How much? This part about Ronna McDaniel is stunning. I had no idea. “Born into Michigan royalty—granddaughter of the beloved former governor, George Romney, and niece of former presidential nominee Mitt Romney—she knows the state's politics as well as anyone. Working for her uncle's campaign here, and then as a national committeewoman and state party chair, McDaniel earned respect for her canny, studied approach. She spun and exaggerated and played the game, but she was generally viewed as being above board. That changed after Trump's 2016 victory. Tapped by the president-elect to take over the Republican National Committee—on the not-so-subtle condition that she remove 'Romney' from her professional name—McDaniel morphed into an archetype of the Trump-era GOP sycophant. There was no lie too outlandish to parrot, no behavior too unbecoming to justify, no abuse of power too flagrant to enable.”

It's that not-so-subtle condition. That she went along with? Wow. These people. These absolutely worthless people.