“He made me do it!”
Eric Boehlert this morning points Press Run readers to the “grip” narrative reporters use to explain Republican behavior inside the Beltway and beyond. Boehlert argues that the press itself is handing the GOP this excuse for its refusal to approve a Jan. 6 commission and for its sabotaging core democratic processes.
Ex-president Trump retains a strong “hold” over them. They “fear” his wrath and that of his supporters. Republican officials are in the “grip” of Donald Trump, etc. The narrative appears in story after story as assumption not fact:
The clear implication is that Republicans were forced by Trump to take a position on the January commission that they did not agree with; that Republicans in the U.S. Senate are honest and decent people who put country over party, but they’re not able to do that right now because they live in fear of Trump’s power and political wrath.
Note that no Republican senators ever told journalists they were “afraid” of Trump, or that’s why most voted to scuttle the fact-finding mission. Reporters made that conclusion themselves as a way to explain dangerous GOP behavior — as a way to cover for the GOP instead of telling the glaring truth, which is that Republicans couldn’t care less what caused the bloody insurrection, or if it happens again.
This “grip” narrative is nonsense and it needs to stop —the Republican Party in recent weeks and months has made it clear with its anti-voter drive that it no longer adheres to the tenets of democracy, and that it is determined to permanently wound free and fair elections, passing laws that make it harder, and in many cases, impossible for lawful Americans to vote. Republicans are doing this because they want to. Not because they’re quivering at the sight of Trump.
That is perfectly clear to those with eyes to see it. It is just impolite and impolitic to say so out loud. The Trump mob outside the Capitol was simply acting out what the GOP was acting out inside. Both would do it again.
Decades of “working the refs” by Republican politicians, pundits and think tanks has left much of the press well and thoroughly worked. The press is giving the GOP cover for dismantling the system of free and fair elections.
Emphasizing the idea that fear of Trump is motivating Republicans “risks misleading people about the true nature of the threat posed by the GOP’s ongoing radicalization,” Post columnist Greg Sargent correctly noted weeks ago. “It implies that Republicans would prefer on principle to stand firm in defense of democracy but are not doing so simply out of fear of facing immediate political consequences.”
If you were part of an amoral political movement, wouldn’t you want to attack free and fair elections in order to give yourself a permanent advantage? If you had no concern for democracy, wouldn’t you set out to make sure future Democratic victories could be invalidated? That’s what Republicans are now doing, without pause, and out in the open.
It is no surprise that so many Americans fail at spotting fake news stories and overestimate their ability to do so. Confirmation bias, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, etc. Plus, as Charlie Sykes admitted five years ago now, decades of right-wing talk radio essentially destroyed the truth function of facts.
It is also in part that tendency Martin Niemöller identified to dismiss injustices done to others because they were not done to you. But it is also difficult for our brains to register the extremism playing out right before our eyes. Even in an age of credulity, every more incredible headline seems unreal.
As I found in lampooning the New Age movement, it was hard to keep ahead of the reality (or unreality). I imagined a men’s support group called “Men Without Foreskins” as satire, only to find later there was such a group. No matter how crazy the fake product or therapy, believers did me one better.
The walkout Democrats staged in Texas Sunday night to prevent passage of the latest ratchet of voting restrictions makes one wonder just how far the GOP will go in sabotaging the republic. No matter how much crazy you can imagine, they’ll go crazier.