(2 Minute Read) A boxer stays in the arena fighting until the final whistle even when he is losing. Only a self-interested coward would skulk out of the arena to avoid what looks like an almost certain loss and probably unnecessary punches. Contrary to McConnell’s announcement today, Trump did not “feed lies” to his supporters about election fraud. He stayed in the arena and took the punches until the electoral college final whistle vote on January 6.

Trump maintains, and so he should, that his staying in the ring over the election “irregularities” or “fraud”, was justified not just for his election, but for cleaning up another known corner of the swamp: election fraud.

There is bipartisan agreement that in any election there is election fraud as there was in the 2020 election. The disagreement is whether it was possible, in the eight week window between election day and the electoral college vote, to prove sufficient election fraud that could change the election results.

Proving sufficient election fraud in the eight weeks between election day and the electoral college vote would require the Trump team to untangle four years of Democrats’ lawfare tilting state election laws in their favor.

It also required the Trump team to convince the same courts who had allowed the unconstitutional tilting of election laws in their states to agree that they had made bad decisions – and to correct them.

It required the Trump team to convince the state bureaucrats and politicians responsible for running elections to let them into their facilities to prove they had failed in their jobs and allowed election fraud.

It required the Trump team to somehow capture enough evidence of the Democrat army of volunteers committing illegalities, just for example, giving ballots out to the homeless. Then, having those homeless confess that now knowing all the facts testify they believe they were tricked into voting for Biden, and/or that they provided an address that was not technically, legally a homeless shelter.  

Punching it out in the political arena to achieve all of that was an almost insurmountable task. It would require eliciting courage and responsibility from judges, politicians, and union bosses, people who were not used to being challenged, to do the right thing. Still, there was a slim chance of success considering the razor thin margins of victory. Simply throwing down your gloves and leaving the arena isn’t an option for someone of Trump’s character.

A boxer doesn’t get up and leave the arena when he thinks it’s almost certainly over to spare himself unnecessary punches. That would be cowardly. Trump stayed in the arena.

Likewise Senators Cruz and Hawley stayed in the arena. They made no promises that their objection to the electoral college would succeed. To the contrary, they said it was a “long shot” with only one relatively thin precedent when election fraud was strongly suspected and a bi-partisan committee was formed by the house to review before certifying the election. On a purely common sense level such a bipartisan investigation made sense for the sake of unifying a divided country.

However, most Senators were unwilling to do something extraordinary in extraordinary times and instead relied on the old “it’s not my job”: I only count votes, not determine their legitimacy. Like Trump, Cruz and Hawley will go down in history as heroes for taking the punches when they stood up in the arena and objected.

Trump had a responsibility to the American people to stay in the political arena and fight to the last whistle on January 6. There was a chance that the above could come together and the right people would find the courage, but it didn’t happen.  This was a rare defeat for Trump. He is not a loser, but he handled it graciously, unlike a relative handful of his supporters who broke with everything the MAGA movement stood for and turned to violence, or at least followed the calls of the “false flag” of violent Antifa in the crowd.

Some RINOs are trying to inflict political violence on Trump by kicking him when he is down and leaving the ring after having fought the good fight. That is what is shameful.  “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” Trump is not a quitter, but graciously accepted defeat after he had done all that he could right up to the final whistle. That is one of the reasons his supporters love President Trump.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

April 23, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt.