Recent polls have found that 70% of Republican supporters in the United States believe that President Donald Trump was defeated in an unfair or fraudulent election, echoing claims made by both foreign and domestic disinformation campaigns.
Numerous legal challenges by the Trump campaign have been defeated in courts across the country, and rumours about election fraud have been repeatedly debunked. That includes by some journalists on Fox News and Republican state officials, such as Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state. But it’s apparently not enough for elections to be free from fraud – they must be perceived as such.
Even after Joe Biden takes office, millions of Republican supporters will continue to believe the election was illegitimate. This is not just a problem for a smooth transition to a Biden administration. Rather, it is the latest symptom of a dysfunctional public sphere.
Democratic societies need to include citizens in political…