Last week began with allegations of election fraud by Rep. Bob Good (R) in Virginia's 5th Congressional District primary race, yet another false claim evincing a deeply troubling trend in American politics.

Good, trailing his Donald Trump-backed opponent, John McGuire, by a slim margin, has resorted to what strongly appears to be thoroughly baseless allegations of irregularities, including a debunked conspiracy theory about precinct evacuations due to fires.

We all need to stop and think about what’s going on here. What Bob Good is doing is furthering a pattern of behavior that has become increasingly common in recent years, particularly among candidates aligned with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

Good's actions mirror those of Trump, who famously contested the results of the 2020 presidential election without evidence. Trump began laying the groundwork for these claims months before the election, making over 150 statements about fraudulent ballots and the alleged dangers of mail-in voting starting in April 2020. After the election results began to indicate Trump's potential loss, he intensified his efforts to construct a narrative of a stolen election, claiming widespread fraud perpetrated by Democrats.

Despite the lack of concrete evidence to support these claims, the belief in a fraudulent........

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