I assume you don't read the Atlantic? This story was before the election. The trumpf team has never been too smart. They talked about the plan publicly. Folks talked to reporters about it. The plan all along was to say they won when the early results were in, and try to stop the counting of early and mail votes.
And you guys bought it. If people kept lying to me, I would stop believing what they said after a while.
There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/