To begin with, stop trying to thwart the will of the electorate. While Donald Trump certainly has the legal “right” to lie [so long as it’s not under oath], to create frivolous lawsuits, and to keep the incoming Administration in the dark for as long as possible, that doesn’t make it right, and it’s certainly not good for the country…and you don’t have to go along with it.

But then, much of what the Republican Party has done in this election hasn’t been good for the country. You’ve whipped up the old-line conservatives, the misogynists, the ultra-conservatives, the rednecks, and the non-college-educated white males into a rage with lies about what the Democrats haven’t done, won’t do, and can’t do. That was enough to trim the Democrat majority in the House and will likely retain your hold on the Senate.

Now you’re pandering to a lying, narcissistic, bullying crook by supporting unsupported charges of non-existent voting fraud, an effort which strongly appears to resemble an attempted coup at worst and delaying and attempting to undermine the transition to a new Administration at best.

All this is, of course, a culmination of the past four years, where the majority of Republican accomplishments were largely destructive, based on an unthinking visceral attempt to gut anything accomplished by the previous administration, regardless of the impact on the country, the economy, public health, or the environment. So far as I can determine, the majority of the positive Republican “accomplishments” in the past four years consisted of a tax bill that provided small tax cuts to most Americans and enormous tax cuts to the wealthy and a modest criminal justice reform bill.

The trade war with China hurt U.S. farmers more than it punished China; China just bought soybeans and other crops elsewhere. The costs of parts and components manufactured in China went up, and so did the prices of U.S. products incorporating them. Despite promising a better health care plan for four years, no plan was ever even drafted. Being against masks and not taking Covid-19 seriously for most of the past year showed a total lack of positive leadership, with the possible exception of speeding up the development of a vaccine. The “deregulation” effort increased air and water pollution and added to the U.S. contribution to global warming. The great Trump wall largely consisted of rebuilding existing barriers and was funded, likely illegally in part, by shifting federal funds Congress allocated to other uses, while the most notable feature of immigration efforts was to rip infants and children from their parents.

Foreign policy, if it can be called that, consisted of being friendly to dictators and other authoritarian governments, while attacking and/or minimizing long-time allies, and, of course, steadfastly refusing to condemn Russian interference in U.S. elections.

And to top it all off, most elected and appointed Republicans in Washington have now demonstrated that they’re largely Donald Trump’s bitches, with neither the guts nor the decency to stand up for democracy and for a peaceful transition of power to a new president.

Is that the kind of legacy and reputation you want?