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An image of President Donald Trump appeared on video screens before his speech to supporters from the Ellipse at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
ā. . . she had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered. She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her. āThe human sound-trackā he nicknamed her in his own mind.ā ā George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-four
If only Orwell could see us now. But I digress.
While the deep-thinking worthies of the anti-anti-Trump media scoff at what they see as an unseemly focus on Donald Trump, and warn against Trump Derangement Syndrome, this weekend Trump:
Claimed that magnets donāt work if they get wet. āThink of it, magnets,ā Trump said. āNow all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, thatās the end of the magnets.ā (No, itās not.)
āFormer President Donald Trump returned to mocking the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, alluding to the former prisoner-of-warās broken limbs. . . . āYou know, without John McCain, we would have had it done,ā Trump said. āJohn McCain, for some reason, couldnāt get his arm up that day. Remember?ā
Blamed Abraham Lincoln for not ānegotiatingā the Civil War.āSo many mistakes were made. See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you,ā Trump said. āI think you could have negotiated that. All the people died. So many people died.ā
Liz Cheney had some questions:
āWhich part of the Civil War ācould have been negotiatedā? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union?ā
Began appropriating the word āinsurrectionā ā suggesting that Biden administrationās handling the border was the real insurrection. āWhen you talk about insurrection,ā he declared in Iowa, āwhat theyāre doing, thatās the real deal.ā [Next up: Donald Trump, champion of Genuine American Democracy.]
[Trump aide Dan] Scavino told [Special Counsel Jack] Smithās investigators that as the violence began to escalate that day, Trump āwas just not interestedā in doing more to stop it.
Sources also said former Trump aide Nick Luna told federal investigators that when Trump was informed that then-Vice President Mike Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, āSo what?ā -- which sources said Luna saw as an unexpected willingness by Trump to let potential harm come to a longtime loyalist.
āTrump did not voluntarily sign the stateās loyalty oath as part of his package of ballot-access paperwork submitted Thursday to the Illinois State Board of Elections. That omission is a departure from his presidential candidacies of 2016 and 2020, when he affixed his signature to the oath both timesā¦
Biden and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis both signed the oathā¦
In the latter part of the oath, candidates attest that they ādo not directly or indirectly teach or advocate the overthrow of the government of the United States or of this state or any unlawful change in the form of the governments thereof by force or any unlawful means.ā
There are countless ways to measure Trumpās transmogrification of the Republican party: the acceptance of the Big Lie, the abandonment of Ukraine, the ideological nihilism, the polls.
But for students of history and human psychology consider this weekendās performance by Elise Stefanik, whom George Orwell unfortunately never met.
Once a rising normie in the party ā an acolyte of Paul Ryan ā Stefanikās metamorphosis into a human MAGA talking point has been marvelous to behold. On Sunday she went on Meet the Press and she
parroted Trumpās reference to J6 defendants as āhostagesā;
embraced the claim that the 2020 election was an āunconstitutional circumventing of the Constitution, not going through state legislators when it comes to changing election lawā;
refused to commit to certifying the 2024 election; and
stood by Trumpās statement that immigrants were āpoisoning the bloodā of the nation.
āThis is language that the Biden campaign, others says āis parroting Adolf Hitler.ā Are you comfortable with former President Trumpās comments?ā [host Kristen] Welker asked.
After calling the media biased, Stefanik replied: āOur border crisis is poisoning Americans through fentanyl. It is poisoning people, including in my district, who are dying from overdoses of fentanyl. And you know why? Because of Joe Bidenās wide-open border. . . . So yes, I stand by President Trump.ā
Stefanik really is desperately thirsty for that sweet, sweet Trump VP spot. But sheās not the only Republican who has remade herself into the Orange God Kingās image. On Sunday Adam Kinzinger wrote:
This morning my wife informed me about a tweet from Nick Ayers, former good guy staffer of Mike Pence, making some typical alt right-pedophile-dem-and-the Republicans-were-peaceful-on-Jan-6 garbage message. Yet another one bites the dust. Nick Ayers was one of the good guys. But in the world of politics, campaign staff need money, and only the Trumpers are paying right now.
Exit take: Once upon a time (long ago now), responsible Republicans would have pushed back against ā even denounced ā Trumpās reckless rhetoric. Now, they are simply amplifiers of the worst of the worst.
A new report finds Donald Trump grifted millions of dollars from foreign governments while president. Meanwhile, sometimes the worst people in the world get it right, even if they are acting in bad faith. Harvard was justified in protecting its academic standards and the institution itself. Tom Nichols joined me for the weekend pod.
āTheyāre socialist pigs!ā one particularly animated rioter shouts.
āYou ought to be ashamed of yourself!ā Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) says through the broken glass of the door. āIāve been in law enforcement in Texas for 30 years, and Iāve never had people act this way. Iām ashamed!ā
āThatās because youāve never seen corruption like weāve seen in the past month!ā a rioter shouts back.
Rep. (now Senator) Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) can also be seen with Nehls.
āWeāre coming in one way or another,ā one rioter says. āThey can only kill so many of us,ā says another. At one point, as the video is pointed directly at a gun-wielding officer, a rioter shouts āFucking pedophiles! We know about your pedophilia!ā
āIf weāre got to hang a bunch of crooked congressmen, weāll do that, okay?ā another shouts.
But that was then. As NBC notes, āNehls has changed his tone in the three years since Jan. 6, even calling the death of Ashli Babbitt ā the rioter who was shot by a Capitol Police officer as she jumped through a door near the House floor ā āmurder.āā
**
Two years ago, on the first anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, this is what I wrote:
No, Donald Trump will not be holding a press conference on the one-year anniversary of his January 6 Insurrection. But the historical revisionism and truth-mauling will, of course, continue, as the GOP desperately tries to memory-hole what happened a year ago.
Trumpās presidency ended in disgrace and disarray. Aides and cabinet members resigned. In the 24 hours after the Insurrection, he was abandoned by one ally after another. As Mona Charen wrote āJanuary 6th should have been the point of no return, the pivot point at which even the most blinkered sugarcoaters of Trumpism recoiled in disgust from what they had wrought.ā
But it wasnāt. Instead we were subjected to a parade of mind-bending rationalizations, reversals, silence, and surrenders. The GOP and its media allies continue to dodge, deflect, and minimize the enormity of the event; and they have convinced much of their base to either look the other way, or actually applaud the assault on our seat of government.
Since then, itās gotten exponentially worse. So, before the GOP and its right-wing media chorus retcon 1/6, hereās the historical record.
On the morning of Jan. 6, HUGH HEWITT predicted on MEGYN KELLYās podcast that DONALD TRUMPās final weeks in office would be much ado about little, and a peaceful transfer of power would just happen. He told Kelly, who agreed, āI would just say to everybody: It will be fine. Everythingās going to be fine.ā
**
On again, off-again Trump critic/Trump supporter Erick Erickson:
As Mona writes, Ericksonās position has . . . evolved.
āIt was a bad day,ā he tweeted, ābut it doesnāt outweigh crime, inflation, COVID, school closures, etc. for voters.ā A day later, responding to those who dug up his January 6 tweet demanding that we āshoot the protesters, waive the rules, impeach!ā Erickson was at pains to emphasize that he isnāt now minimizing what happened at the Capitol, but merely responding to a āpress corps obsessed with it as the worst thing ever.ā
**
And, as we are now learning, even Trumpās Ć¼ber-turd-polisher Sean Hannity was horrified by the craziness emanating from the White House. On December 31, 2020, he texted Mark Meadows: āWe canāt lose the entire WH counsels office. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told.ā The night before the riot, he texted that he was āvery worried about the next 48 hoursā
**
Trumpās former Defense Secretary James Mattis delivered a full-throated indictment:
"His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice," he added. "Our Constitution and our Republic will overcome this stain and We the People will come together again in our never-ending effort to form a more perfect Union, while Mr. Trump will deservedly be left a man without a country."
Former Attorney General William Barr says President Donald Trumpās conduct as a violent mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol was a ābetrayal of his office and supporters.ā
āI had planned on serving through the end of your term in office," she wrote. "But after yesterdayās events at the U.S. Capitol, I will resign as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, effective Monday, January 11, 2021 to provide a short period of transition.ā
She was even more direct on Twitter, calling Jan. 6 ātraumatic and entirely avoidableā saying it ādeeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.ā
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also resigned the day after the assault on the Capitol and wrote to Trump, āThere is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.ā
Mick Mulvaney, Trumpās former budget director and acting chief of staff, who on January 6th was serving as a special envoy to Northern Ireland, also resigned.
[F]ollowing the Jan. 6 riots he announced during a live interview on CNBC he was stepping down. āI called [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo last night to let him know I was resigning from that. I canāt do it. I canāt stay,ā Mulvaney told CNBCās āSquawk Box.ā Mulvaney said Trump was ānot the same as he was eight months ago.ā
**
Back then, even right-wing think tanks were appalled. Kay C. James, who was then the president of the Heritage Foundation put out a scathing statement:
Like many Americans, I watched in disbelief Wednesday as an angry mob stormed our U.S. Capitol. As members of Congress gathered to certify the electoral votes of the presidential election, a band of criminals decided to take matters into their own hands. As this horrible act is investigated, it will be determined exactly who they were, and they must be held accountableā¦
Violence should not be used as a tool to bring about change, and those who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Jamesās successor at Heritage is striking a very different note. On December 13, he issued a statement accusing the House January 6th Committee of āabusing its congressional authority with its latest attack on former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. This committee is comprised of politicians who are carrying out a partisan fishing expedition intent on destroying the reputations of public servants in the Trump administration.ā
**
Back then, one of the nationās most prominent business organizations, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) urged Mike Pence to consider removing Trump via the Twenty-fifth Amendment. The groupās statement was remarkable:
The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy. Anyone indulging conspiracy theories to raise campaign dollars is complicit.
Vice President Pence, who was evacuated from the Capitol, should seriously consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to preserve democracy.
In any case this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure. He has cost Republicans the House, the White House, and now the Senate. Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.
It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.
By November, though, the WSJ published this piece, snarking that āThe idea that the Capitol rioters threatened the American republic is a fantasy.ā
āThe president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters,ā McCarthy said on the House floor. āHe should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump."
Can we now conclude decisively that top Republican leadership, and by extension the GOP in general, has a serious Civil War problem? They just donāt get it, and have less of an ability to articulate a factual and thoughtful position statement on it than an eighth grader. Worse still, quite possibly they simply donāt care, and has become their norm, they feel that whatever interpretation they put on it is both acceptable and appropriate as long as enough voters refuse to hold them accountable for it. It clearly is not the moral issue to them now that it is to the rest of us, and has been for a century and a half.
If the Civil War could have been negotiated, what else of substance in our history could have been dealt with as if a business transaction? Would Trump have negotiated World War II after Pearl Harbor such that we would lose only Hawaii, Alaska, and the West Coast to the Japanese? All of the rest of western and central Europe to the Germans? Lord only knows how he would have negotiated September 11. More significantly, the comment gives us an important window on how he would deal with Ukraine, likely Taiwan, future allied nation states in Europe and elsewhere that might come under attack, and anything else that would take time, resolve, and money to deal with, as well as a principled stand. Enemy nations and movements must be drooling with anticipation at what they could get away with if that man ā and potentially anyone else with an āRā next to his or her name ā is elected in November. Truly they cannot wait for November to arrive.
This comment may seem a little off topic, but not entirely. Itās really directed at Timās excellent and thought-provoking interview with Josh Green on yesterdayās Next Level pod. I canāt figure out how to leave a comment directly there. But itās not new or unique to that pod.
I strongly object to the ongoing use of the words āidentitarianā or "identity politics" or similar to describe the Democratic coalition. The modern Republican Party is made up entirely of people who either are White Christian Nationalists, or tolerate their ideas, including the racial and gender hierarchies they espouse. Period. No exceptions. That is as close to a single identity as I can think of.
When applied to Democrats, I assume it means something like āa mosaic of people who fight vigorously for their racial, gender, religious, educational, ethnic, socio-economic, or sexual identities and tend to ally with others who do the same.ā It just doesnāt seem to be well-described by the word āidentitarian,ā and I would like people to stop reflexively using the word which has been pounded into our vocabulary just like āpro-lifeā and āelitistā and āsocialismā and ādeath taxā in just the way that Newt Gingerich and Frank Luntz want them to be understood.
Can we now conclude decisively that top Republican leadership, and by extension the GOP in general, has a serious Civil War problem? They just donāt get it, and have less of an ability to articulate a factual and thoughtful position statement on it than an eighth grader. Worse still, quite possibly they simply donāt care, and has become their norm, they feel that whatever interpretation they put on it is both acceptable and appropriate as long as enough voters refuse to hold them accountable for it. It clearly is not the moral issue to them now that it is to the rest of us, and has been for a century and a half.
If the Civil War could have been negotiated, what else of substance in our history could have been dealt with as if a business transaction? Would Trump have negotiated World War II after Pearl Harbor such that we would lose only Hawaii, Alaska, and the West Coast to the Japanese? All of the rest of western and central Europe to the Germans? Lord only knows how he would have negotiated September 11. More significantly, the comment gives us an important window on how he would deal with Ukraine, likely Taiwan, future allied nation states in Europe and elsewhere that might come under attack, and anything else that would take time, resolve, and money to deal with, as well as a principled stand. Enemy nations and movements must be drooling with anticipation at what they could get away with if that man ā and potentially anyone else with an āRā next to his or her name ā is elected in November. Truly they cannot wait for November to arrive.
This comment may seem a little off topic, but not entirely. Itās really directed at Timās excellent and thought-provoking interview with Josh Green on yesterdayās Next Level pod. I canāt figure out how to leave a comment directly there. But itās not new or unique to that pod.
I strongly object to the ongoing use of the words āidentitarianā or "identity politics" or similar to describe the Democratic coalition. The modern Republican Party is made up entirely of people who either are White Christian Nationalists, or tolerate their ideas, including the racial and gender hierarchies they espouse. Period. No exceptions. That is as close to a single identity as I can think of.
When applied to Democrats, I assume it means something like āa mosaic of people who fight vigorously for their racial, gender, religious, educational, ethnic, socio-economic, or sexual identities and tend to ally with others who do the same.ā It just doesnāt seem to be well-described by the word āidentitarian,ā and I would like people to stop reflexively using the word which has been pounded into our vocabulary just like āpro-lifeā and āelitistā and āsocialismā and ādeath taxā in just the way that Newt Gingerich and Frank Luntz want them to be understood.