Donald Trump's Allies Reportedly Acknowledging Joe Biden Win in Private

High-ranking Republican officials and White House aides privately accept President Donald Trump's election loss, according to a report by The Washington Post. Sources close to Trump told the outlet that many public figures are just "humoring" Trump and his legal challenges to the election results, though behind his back they admit that he lost a fair election. The insider argued that this was harmless, despite the major blows to public faith in the electoral system.

Trump has refused to concede defeat since Saturday when President-elect Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Trump's administration has sought recounts and filed lawsuits against state and city governments of the election results — all of which is legal, though Trump's accompanying rhetoric is damaging public faith in democracy. Trump's claims have been bolstered by support from more conventional Republicans in government, but the sources who spoke to The Post said that some who are supporting him publicly are resigned to his loss, they just won't admit it.

"What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time?" wondered one source, who is reportedly a senior Republican official. "No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he'll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he'll leave."

Still, whether Trump is personally "plotting" something is far from the only concern on the minds of Americans after this divisive election. According to a survey published by Politico, about 72 percent of Republican voters believe that a significant amount of ballot tampering took place in this election, and 78 percent said that they don't believe this election was "free and fair." Since there has been no real evidence of voter fraud, election tampering or other foul play, many analysts believe that this degradation of trust can only come from the president's own words.

So far, no election polling sites have discovered real evidence of widespread election tampering, and the Trump campaign's own investigations have turned up nothing. Even if they did, they would need to find massive conspiracies in multiple states to make up the 56-vote gulf between Trump and a second term as president. This situation is extremely unlikely, and there is nothing to hint it will come to pass.