There is literally no evidence of widespread fraud in Nevada elections.

There is literally no evidence of widespread fraud in any state’s elections.

There is literally tons of evidence that the president of the United States, aided and abetted by prostrate Republicans, plans to try to preserve GOP majorities in November by changing, bending or breaking election rules. President Donald Trump, or at least his non-delusional aides, understands Republicans will likely lose the House and perhaps the Senate in November — unless they can do something to change the way the election is conducted.

These are facts. And they should be repeated frequently from now until Election Day.

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic — and it is almost impossible to do so when talking about election integrity and attempts to subvert results. But it is incumbent on prominent voices — in elective office, in the private sector and in journalism — to reinforce these verities and warn the public about what is to come.

This is not partisan; it is patriotism, a word that has been shorn of all meaning by those cloaking themselves in the flag to undermine democracy. After following this mendacity cycle after cycle, the endgame is no mystery.

I blame President Trump for this — he is a petulant sore loser with the worst case of narcissism since the guy from whom the word is derived. But I don’t primarily fault Trump, as many do.

Yes, his toxicity in the body politic is manifest. But he is what he is. He is immutable, pathological.

The ones most responsible are his enablers — in Washington, D.C., in the states, in Nevada. There are Republicans who know what he continues to say about 2020 is false. They know what he is implying about 2026 is tendentiously meant to cast doubt on election security, ironically so they can make elections less secure.

Trump has been spewing lies about Nevada elections for nearly a decade.

In 2016, he alleged that voting in Clark County was “a rigged system” because voters in line at closing time at a polling station in a Hispanic neighborhood were allowed to vote.

In 2020, as he filed numerous lawsuits here and elsewhere after he clearly lost to Joe Biden, his campaign made spurious claims about absentee votes and the president declared, “Fake election results in Nevada, also!”

All of this was false and made no logical sense. Exactly how would this conspiracy have worked? No one ever explained because it would be virtually impossible. Instead of speaking up, Republicans either echoed his fantasies or remained mute, both spineless and damaging reactions. Instead, Trump sent obnoxious, prevaricating interlopers such as Richard Grenell and Matt Schlapp to make unsupported allegations about voter fraud, with former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt fronting the disinformation campaign.

Nevada Republicans, including state GOP Chair Michael McDonald and his fellow conspirators, held what they claimed was an official Electoral College ceremony in Carson City, and then sent what amounted to false documents to the National Archives.

They did not pose as alternate electors; they said they were the electors.

I don’t know if this Dirty Half-Dozen committed a crime — the case has yet to be resolved. But what they did was criminal.

This gaggle of local and national grifters cast doubt on Nevada elections and, like similar malefactors across the country, amplified Trump’s message. This was, to use a term the president has popularized and one I hate to utter, fake news.

But the president has repeated it so often and the echoes have reverberated through the years that many ingenuous folks believed him — and yes, continue to believe him. And now Trump and his allies have the gall to say they need more election security measures because they have gulled so many people into believing their garbage, and they can cite polling that faith has been lost in elections.

This is chutzpah taken to a new level, gaslighting done better than Charles Boyer could have executed: Persuade people that elections are compromised so you can compromise elections.

Make no mistake: That is what is happening here. Trump is not even trying to hide it, having his FBI raid election offices in Georgia where he once asked a secretary of state to “find” enough votes to switch the result and preparing an executive order to federalize elections so he has more control. It’s not too far-fetched to predict he will deploy troops or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to intimidate voters.

This goes beyond voter ID, which is coming to Nevada, or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which is much broader than simply requiring identification to vote. Trump wants to ban mail ballots because Democrats have better organizing tools — unions and others — to run campaigns using absentees and what is known as ballot harvesting.

Of course, mail ballot eligibility and ballot harvesting should be debated in legislative branches, not changed by executive fiat, especially because the Constitution is specific about state authority when it comes to elections. But Trump and company don’t care about laws or the Constitution, and unless they are thwarted, neither may matter.

You hate the left? Fine. You love Trump? Fine. But neither of those feelings should obscure your love for this country and the principles that undergird it, the ones that Americans have died for during the last 250 years.

The greatest act of patriotism any of us can commit this cycle is to stand in the way of these patriot poseurs and ensure that the public — or at least the portion that is still listening — knows the truth.