Donald Trump initially accepted the Republican midterm defeat, then began questioning whether the election was honest. For a moment, the country had witnessed an ending. Naturally, the producer demanded reshoots.

His complaint on Monday was that the polls had been wrong. Stateline reports that polls mostly favored Democrats but underestimated their strength. Ah. So the forecast said rain, it rained harder, and now we must investigate who rigged the fucking clouds.

This is an astonishingly convenient theory of elections. If the prediction matches the result, your instincts were brilliant. If it doesn’t, reality has breached its contract with the prediction. At no point must the leader of the losing party entertain the horrifying possibility that voters simply preferred the other party’s candidates.

The revival does have a casting problem. Most senior elected Republicans have acknowledged the losses. JD Vance pointed to the Iran war. Ted Cruz described a historic repudiation. Those are explanations, a substance known to interfere with the production of conspiracies.

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Imagine trying to launch your big stolen-election musical while the chorus keeps singing that you lost.

Researcher Kate Starbird told Stateline that Trump’s return to denialism prompted a spike in online conspiracy discussion, but the movement lacks its former popular support and infrastructure. It has not produced the kind of street movement seen after 2020. The megaphone still works. That does not mean the stadium is full.

And broadcasters have had an expensive rehearsal. Fox settled Dominion’s defamation suit for $787.5 million in 2023. Turns out putting other people’s election fantasies on television can require a special-effects budget larger than the election fantasies themselves.

None of this means denialism is finished. Officials warn that the incentives remain, and 2028 is coming. Do not throw away the fire extinguisher because the man with the matches is currently disappointing the box office.

But there is a practical problem with this comeback tour: eventually you have to sell tickets to somebody who isn’t in the band.