It has been a close-run thing. Despite the fact that Joe Biden, the US president-elect, clearly won last month’s presidential election — and this week secured the majority of Electoral College votes required to win the White House — it took 41 days for Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, to acknowledge the result. Many of his colleagues have yet to follow suit. Some never will. Last week, more than half of the Republican members of the House of Representatives signed a petition asking the Supreme Court to throw out the results in the four swing states that clinched Mr Biden’s victory.

The attorneys-general of 19 Republican-controlled states also put their name to the suit, which originated in Texas. The court summarily dismissed this ill-disguised attempt to reverse Mr Trump’s defeat by judicial coup. But Mr Trump himself has yet to concede. Nor, given his life-long allergy to accept being a “loser”, is he ever likely to do so. As a result, roughly three-quarters of Republican voters believe that the election has been stolen. The system’s guardrails have held up. But they have been badly weakened by a party that still refuses to tell its voters the truth.

The next test will come on January 6 when Congress is supposed to certify the Electoral College result. Mr McConnell is urging his colleagues to refrain from challenging Mr Biden’s winning slates of electors. Many are likely to ignore him. There is almost no danger that Capitol Hill could overturn the result because the House remains in Democratic hands. The manner in which Mr Biden becomes president, however, will shape the future of US politics.