Jules Witcover, syndicated columnist

WASHINGTON — With Donald Trump denied Facebook and Twitter megaphones, he was obliged to take his Big Lie on his reelection defeat to the hustings, where he retold it to the still-faithful in North Carolina and Georgia.

“That election will go down as the crime of the century,” he intoned, “and our country is being destroyed by people who perhaps have no right to destroy it.” But such bland lines failed to generate the old crowd fire yore, even when he pivoted to attacks on President Joe Biden, read from a teleprompter, and on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the popular coronavirus pandemic expert.

“He’s not a great doctor, but a hell of a promoter,” said the undisputed champ of self-aggrandizement of the modest Fauci. “He likes television more than any politician in this room,” blandly excluding himself.

Beyond beating his own drum at the annual North Carolina Republican convention and assailing the Biden agenda and Fauci, the former president had little else say. He repeated his false claim that the 2020 election had been rigged against him, and his baseless prediction that somehow he will be restored to the Oval Office by August.

But many in the convention crowd ate up the political red meat he tossed in his speech, testifying to their continued ardor. For what it’s worth, he endorsed the Senate primary candidacy of Rep. Ted Budd after Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump announced she would not run at this time because she had two young children at home.

One dissident attendee, Sarah Longwell of Republican Voters Against Trump, told the Washington Post: “There is no alternative to Trump right now because they are so afraid to challenge him in any way. There doesn’t seem to be a tremendous appetite for what Trump is selling outside the MAGA faithful. A lot of Republicans want to move on from Trump, but they need all the voters who have engaged in Trump’s behalf to stick with them.”

In Georgia, its Republican state party convention was in a sour mood despite Trump’s appearance. The crowd booed Gov. Brian Kemp for his perceived failure to help Trump overturn Biden victory there. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who opposed Trump and vouched for the Georgia result favoring Biden, was censured by the party.

In all, it makes one wonder how much longer it will take such ardent believers in Ronald Reagan in the Grand Old Party to wake up to the fakery of the reality-TV interloper.

As matters stand now, Trump is settling for flogging the lie of a rigged 2020 election. Biden, meanwhile, seeks to overcome objections conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia to legislation that would preserve voting rights in the various states.

Progress on Biden’s fast start and very ambitious reform agenda depends greatly on his ability to maintain and act upon his razor-thin majority in the Senate. So far, appeals to Manchin’s party solidarity have gotten nowhere. The spectacle of a single unimpressive Democratic senator frustrating the will of the new president does not bode well for Biden’s effort to portray himself as a can-do leader in the FDR mold.

Liberal Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut offered: “If we’re going to shut down the Senate and not do anything big between now and next election, we might as well hand the election to the Republicans.”

Editor’s note: Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcovercomcast.net.