The mainstream media claims the election is over. Biden is the president-elect and the official one. Meanwhile, some pundits on the right either sincerely believe that Trump’s situation is hopeless or just want to jump to the liberal bandwagon to “save” face. Before we lose hope, let us recognize that there is still a recount race in the battleground states.

Constitutional law expert Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, speaking on NewsMax TV, suggested Trump is fighting to derail Biden’s chance to reach the 270 electorate votes threshold, which will force handing the election to the House state delegations. That is unduly pessimistic. Trump can still win with honest vote counts.

Trump has 232 electorate votes. If he wins the manual recount in Georgia, it will give him 248 to Biden 290. If that happens, Trump must still flip two of four states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona -- to derail Biden’s 270 and win the election outright. (I tend to think that Nevada is a foregone conclusion for Biden.)

What happens if Biden wins in Georgia’s recount? Trump then must win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the states he should have won before the massive cheating happened. This will give Trump 278 electorate votes. It’s a tough job, but there is still some hope.

For this reason, the current recount in Georgia is pivotal. This is not only because of its 16 electorate votes but, more importantly, it is about momentum. Winning it will bolster Trump’s narrative that various types of vote fraud warrant manual recounts in other states.

Biden’s campaign understands this very well. They will do just about anything to prevent Trump from winning the recount. With issues surrounding the recount process in Georgia, how will the Trump campaign resolve the matter?

Trump’s team knows the expression, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.” Without auditing the ballots first, a manual recount is just a waste of time unless the real problem is the voting machine. It appears that, in some Georgia counties, the recount is as secretive and flawed as the original count. The Trump campaign must document every failed chance to inspect what’s going on to make a solid post-recount showing to a court.

One of the colossal mistakes of the Trump campaign and the RNC is not to anticipate this cheating by the Biden campaign. As someone who had participated in a political race in the past, it’s extremely difficult to win votes. The fact that Trump crisscrossed several states and held four to five rallies in one day during the campaign is a testament to that. However, safeguarding the votes is an even tougher job. If you don’t protect the votes, it’s akin to planting and growing your corn only to have it destroyed by rats before harvesting.

The five battleground states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona) have 73 electoral votes combined. They are crucial. If Trump had won three of those states, it would have been a game over for Biden -- or at least, Trump would not lose the race.

Nevertheless, absent some big reveal about massive nationalized vote fraud, it appears that, despite knowing how corrupt the Democratic machines are in Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, and Milwaukee, where most ballots will be counted, the Trump campaign and the RNC didn’t do enough to protect the votes and observe the vote counts. They should have hired at least 30 big and intimidating-looking men in each of the metro cities to monitor the vote counts 24/7 with clear instructions to fight without caving for full access to the vote count, no matter what the Democrats said.

It would probably only have cost them around $4 million to do that. Instead, the vote counts were observed mostly by volunteers whom election officials (and, perhaps, Biden campaign people) easily dismissed and pushed over.

This is not the time to call for heads in the middle of this battle. However, learning from the huge mistake, the Trump team and the RNC must do just about anything to safeguard the vote recounts. Even if they were soft for the Georgia recount, they can still ramp up the energy for recounts in the other states.

This is a war -- the war on safeguarding the votes. The Left understands it perfectly and treats it as such. As Obama said, his side will bring a gun to the fight. When the Trump campaign and the RNC bring smiles and lawsuits, it’s no contest.

In a political election, a lawsuit is always two steps behind. First, cheating happens. Second, besides taking time for the court decision, the lawsuit may not be successful. Meanwhile, the villain will celebrate his fraudulent victory triumphantly.

This is not a call for a gunfight. But the time to play it naively and rely only on lawsuits is over. The survival of the Republic is at stake.

Image: Hand recount in Georgia. YouTube screengrab.