Is President Trump raising money by lying about the election? Now you can see everything.

These earnest appeals for donations, a largely theoretical legal effort to stay in power, disappeared on January 20, 2021 (actually two weeks earlier), but Trump partially continues to generate enthusiasm for his political future by making false claims about his 2020 presidency. loss. His enthusiasm is, as always, recognized by his contributions.

But, as was the case at the end of 2020, he is not alone. And it was outside groups such as Stop the Steal that raised huge sums of money by falsely claiming that the election results were in doubt. Now, as CNN reported Wednesday, it’s the Republican Party itself.

Earlier this year, Ronna McDaniel stepped down as party chair, a position she had held since shortly before President Trump took office. She was replaced by two people, including Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. The change reportedly centers on Trump’s continued insistence that the Republican Party agrees with his claims about the election. Chairman Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump quickly made it clear that they would do so.

So is the fundraising appeal that CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and M Steck got. In it, she said a woman who identified herself as “Stephanie” was calling on Lara Trump’s behalf. And she cited 2020 as a reason for the recipients of her calls to fund the party again.

“We all know” about the problems that occurred that year, she says. “Lack of photo ID, unsecured ballot drop boxes, mass mailing of ballots, and voter rolls filled with deceased and non-citizens are just a few examples of the massive fraud that occurred.”

These were not “issues” in any sense, other than to make it easier for people to vote in some cases.

In some states, you do not have to show identification to vote, but no states have demonstrated significant fraud that relied on a lack of identification.

There were “insecure ballot boxes” in some states, but again, no significant fraud occurred. Suspicions of fraud using ballot drop boxes have attracted attention. It has since been soundly refuted.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, some states have begun mass mailing out ballots. No significant wrongdoing was ever substantiated.

Many of the dead were registered to vote because many of them were rude enough not to update their states with their new status afterward. There is no indication that a significant number of votes were cast using the identities of these deceased persons.

These are all things that President Trump emphasized before and after the 2020 election, trying to emphasize the idea that his defeat, if it were to happen, was necessarily the result of some vague illegality. is.

But one thing he didn’t talk about much was his claim that there were many non-citizens on the voter rolls. This is mentioned here not because there is a lot of evidence that non-citizens are registered, but because this idea of ​​non-citizens voting is a current obsession on the right. For example, the issue of non-referendums is reportedly the focus of Friday’s event featuring Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana). This “Great Replacement Theory” idea that Democrats are intentionally admitting immigrants to get votes has spread from the fringes to the mainstream and even into fundraising pitches.

“If the Democrats have their way, your vote could be canceled by someone who is not even an American citizen,” “Stephanie” said elsewhere in the call, as reported by CNN. “Patriots like you, the people who are really leading this country, deserve free and fair elections.”

(The expression “pulling the wagon” is an allegory often used to suggest that certain groups, such as immigrants or people on welfare, are freeloaders who take advantage of others.)

That said, the most important thing is “some examples of large-scale fraud that have taken place.” Waving off vague and baseless fraud is fundamental to efforts to turn skepticism about 2020 into something more favorable. But this one goes further and clearly states that there was a “massive fraud” when in reality there was no such thing.

A Washington Post School poll released this week found that more than a third of Republicans believe there were millions of fraudulent votes in 2020, but this turns out not to be the case. . Other polls have found that a majority of Republicans believe that year’s election was not legitimate, even if there is no concrete evidence to support it.

The new Republican Party, led by Lara Trump, is leaning into the false idea that 2020 was tainted by fraud. Prospective employees are tested to determine loyalty to claims. An Orwellian department called “Electoral Integrity” was created, and prominent figures who spread false claims about elections were selected to lead it. The message is now being sent to donors. Please give us money to stop all the scams happening.

Hey, that worked for Trump four years ago.