If we can’t trust our elections, we’re sunk as a nation. Kaput. And right now, nearly four in 10 Americans — including nearly one in five Democrats — don’t trust our elections. Or, at least, they didn’t trust our most recent election.

If you think we’re being overly dramatic about election integrity, you must’ve missed what happened at the Capitol last Wednesday. Five people died. And what were they protesting? Our nation’s lack of election integrity, and our politicians’ unwillingness to do anything about it.

These weren’t hoodlums. They weren’t career criminals or agitators or troublemakers. But for perhaps a few antifa infiltrators, these were Trump supporters. They were among the tens of millions of Americans who voted to reelect our 45th president, and they think they got robbed. They’re furious, and they have every right to be.

Let’s put it this way: If you think your vote was stolen and you aren’t furious, then you have no business casting a ballot.

Last Wednesday, before the events at the Capitol unfolded, The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson published a piece about the vital need in our nation for trustworthy elections. It isn’t the first piece Davidson has written about our deeply flawed presidential election, but it was perhaps the most important article no one ever saw.

“The corporate media,” he wrote, “have with one voice denounced [pro-Trump House and Senate] Republicans and dismissed their concerns as nothing more than the ravings of partisans obsessed with peddling conspiracy theories and currying favor with Donald Trump. Chuck Todd of NBC News declared Sunday that ‘not a single court has found a single instance of fraud’ — an assertion precisely no one believes, not even Todd himself. Yet that’s been the media’s mantra — that there is ‘no evidence’ of voter fraud or irregularities, none whatsoever. We are all supposed to pretend that 2020 was the first election in American history that was clean as the driven snow.”

Todd went so far as to accuse Senator Ron Johnson of using his Senate committee “to create the illusion of voter fraud.” We could just as easily argue, though, that Todd and his Big Media brethren have been guilty of trying to create the illusion of a free, fair, and reliable election. Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, among others, isn’t buying it. But the compelling points he makes — such as President Trump increasing his vote totals with blacks and Hispanics, and winning 19 of 20 “bellwether” counties, and House Republicans winning 27 of 27 “toss-up” races — have been met with yawns from Democrats and the mainstream media.

“Eighty million Americans — 80 million of our fellow citizens, Republicans and Democrats — have doubts about this election,” said Jordan. “And 60 million people … think it was stolen. … We asked for an investigation. We asked Chairman [Jerry] Nadler, Chairwoman [Carolyn] Maloney, for an investigation. They said no. Wouldn’t want to investigate something that half the electorate has doubts about. It’s just the presidency of the United States.”

By refusing to investigate — indeed, by categorically dismissing the legitimate concerns of so many voters — Democrats have fueled the partisan rage and widened the chasm between the parties and their voters. In doing so, they’re merely ensuring that Joe Biden will come into office with the stench of illegitimacy.

As for fixing our broken system, what we wrote last month is no less accurate today: “Mass mail-in balloting? Whose awful idea was that? … Look for Democrats to zealously defend it going forward. Look, too, for any voting-reform efforts led by Republicans to be met with fierce resistance. Stricter voter ID laws? An end to early voting? Tighter eligibility requirements and better signature verification processes for mail-in and absentee ballots? A fully transparent vote-counting process? Criminal consequences for election officials who restrict the access of vote-counting observers? Look for Democrats and their media lickspittles to label efforts like these as ‘undemocratic’ and ‘racist’ and ‘nothing more than an effort to suppress the vote.’”

None of this bodes well for our republic.