And President Donald Trump, given all he has endured for five years from those piously pleading now for a "time of healing," cannot be faulted for his defiant resolve to unearth any and all high crimes or misdemeanors committed in the counting of ballots in the election of Tuesday last.

Trump owes his people this, and he owes the establishment nothing.

Yet, in making this his priority, Trump should be mindful of several realities. From what we have seen so far, the prospect that the decision in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona or Georgia will be overturned does not appear high.

Indeed, it seems a certainty that not enough electoral votes could be flipped from Biden to Trump to overturn Joe Biden's electoral vote victory.

And Trump should realize that in alleging fraud, he is creating an imperative upon himself and his team to provide the evidence to prove it.

In politics as in poker, there comes a time when you have to show your cards or fold your hand. Are the cards there?

Trump should also be aware that his reputation, the causes he has served, and the future of both, will be influenced by how he conducts himself in what appears to be an inevitable defeat.

Richard Nixon, in the 1960 election against JFK, declined to challenge the returns from Illinois, which he lost by 9,000 votes, though journalists then and historians have contended that the state was almost surely stolen in Cook County.

Nixon chose not to challenge the Illinois count.

Among the reasons was that, even had he done so successfully, after a brutal battle like the Bush-Gore contest in Florida, and even had Illinois been shifted into his column, he would have been short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win.

Nixon would have had to contest and flip Texas as well.

Also, while Trump and his campaign are devoting time and resources to the ballot count in battleground states, a last crucial battle is shaping up in Georgia, where the stakes are second only to the presidency.