The MAGA Crowd May Venerate 1776...
... But They Idolize a Would-Be Monarch
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JEFFREY C. ISAAC: The MAGA Crowd May Venerate 1776 But They Idolize a Would-Be Monarch.
Like its predecessors on the American right, the MAGA movement draws heavily on the rhetoric and iconography of the American Revolution. Such rhetoric was brought into full view during the January 6th insurrection, when the crowd that stormed the Capitol bore “1776” banners and Betsy Ross flags and the markings of the Three Percenters (the militia movement whose name derives from the mistaken belief that only 3 percent of the American population fought in the Revolution). And it has surfaced again, with a fury, in response to last week’s FBI search and seizure of documents from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
The MAGA adherents who bedeck themselves in the symbols of the Revolution imagine themselves to be zealous patriots, modern-day Sons of Liberty and Minutemen at Lexington and Concord, standing against tyranny. The MAGA fanatic who died in a shootout last week after he attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati said as much, referring to “patriots” in his postings to Trump’s Truth Social website and replying to MAGA superstar Marjorie Taylor Greene that “the next step is the one we used in 1775.”
The irony here is that the real-life American revolutionaries were avowed enemies of monarchy, while today’s wannabe revolutionaries have as their leader and hero Donald Trump, the most arrogant, monarchical president in U.S. history, a man who truly imagines himself to be beyond the law that applies to everyone else.
When Liz Cheney invoked history in her concession speech, Trumpers and anti-anti-Trumpers sneered. But they know the truth of her stance on the Constitution and the rule of law, and they know everything about Donald Trump is a lie. Tom Nichols joins Charlie Sykes on today’s podcast.
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BRENT ORRELL and JAKE EASTER: What’s Missing from the CHIPS Act.
When the CHIPS and Science Act became law last week, it was missing a key provision meant to support workers impacted by trade: Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program created during the Kennedy administration to ease work transitions for workers who lose their jobs due to trade deals. For over half a century—and especially since trade liberalization accelerated in the early 2000s—TAA has helped hundreds of thousands of workers get back on their feet through a blend of direct support, wage subsidies, and skills retraining.
Growth in trade has been an unambiguous good for the U.S. economy and American families. It has catalyzed whopping U.S. GDP growth since the 1960s, raised American wages and incomes, and provided consumers with ever-wider varieties of goods. The long-term benefits of trade to living standards, however, have come at a price that has been borne disproportionately by communities that once formed the heart of the U.S. manufacturing sector. TAA was part of the answer to this trade-off, providing transition assistance and retraining for individuals who lost their jobs due to shifts in production and lower-cost foreign labor.
MONA CHAREN: Does Preserving Democracy Require Letting Trump Off?
It isn’t just children who burn with indignation about injustice. The longing to see right prevail and wrong punished is arguably one of the fiercest human desires, along with the desire for recognition and the yearning for meaning. That’s why it is nothing less than agonizing to consider that in the case of Donald Trump, justice may have to be sacrificed on the altar of order.
That is the argument advanced by my Beg to Differ colleague Damon Linker:
“Large numbers of Republicans think Democrats are out to destroy Donald Trump (and really, any Republican who dares to challenge the political and cultural dominance of the left) by any means necessary, including through the use of federal law enforcement. . . . This is a dangerous problem, because it shows both that the rule of law is already in an advanced state of decay and that pressing charges against Trump, putting him on trial, and potentially throwing him in jail will accelerate this process, making the decay far worse—because each of those acts undertaken against Trump will confirm the right in its conviction that ‘the rule of law’ has already been replaced by rank partisanship.”
Every fiber of my being rebels at this conclusion. Citing the fact that large numbers of Republicans think Democrats are out to get Trump—and therefore that any legal action will be interpreted as illegitimate is exactly the argument that Ted Cruz and others made about the “stolen election.” Explaining his vote not to certify the results, Cruz observed that “We right now have a substantial chunk of our country that has real doubts about the integrity of the election.” Well, yes, because that chunk of the country was lied to repeatedly by Trump and his obedient sycophants in the Republican party. It’s as if a food inspector had repeatedly lied about unsafe food handling at a local restaurant and then refused to issue a health certificate on the grounds that many people believed the place to be unsafe.
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
Sarah Longwell on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal! Tune in to hear Sarah chat with C-SPAN viewers.
Students turn to RVs for housing… An interesting look at how rents are pushing cash-strapped students into housing alternatives. But before these kids, there was Ken Ilgunas, who secretly was a van dweller in Duke University’s parking lot.
Liz Cheney Already Has a 2024 Strategy… And it may involve destroying the GOP.
Jared Kushner has a book. And this brutal review at the NYT leaves me thinking I am not going to read it. But the real question Dwight Garner has is: who is the audience?
The Hershel Walker train wreck continues. This time ft. Gov. Kristi Noem.
That’s it for me. Tech support questions? Email members@thebulwark.com. Questions for me? Respond to this message.
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