Democrats are moving indiscriminately through their five stages of post-election grief. First came stage two, anger, which manifested itself in mob violence and hot tears of rage.

Now, almost a month after Election Day, the tears and violence have just about subsided but Democratic grief and denial are still with us. Denial is supposed to be stage one, but that presupposes that it is spontaneous and sincere, whereas today’s Democratic denial, in the form or recounts across the Rust Belt, is coolly calculating and disingenuous. Demand a recount and you can clothe yourself in the garb of an honest seeker after facts, when in truth you a cynically trying to delegitimize a result you know to be true.