Being a contrarian is not enjoyable but sometimes it is unavoidable and necessary. This is one of those times, unfortunately.
I think everyone is looking at the makeup of this Commission exactly backwards. I’ll start with a brief analogy:
If this were an investigation of the Beer Hall Putsch, would it make sense to include “moderate” members of the Nazi party or sympathizers in the commission investigating it? Of course not. Surely there were some party members and wannabes who were appalled with Hitler’s tactics that day, but you’d have to be insane to consider them moderates who could be trusted to be evenhanded in an inquiry and actually hold Nazi party members, including Hitler, fully accountable.*
Nearly a hundred years later, a Republican instigated a terrorist attack on the US Capitol. Other Republicans supported and helped organize it. Republicans in the US Government and possibly in the police force aided and abetted it. And Republicans implemented the terrorist attack. And Republicans in the military delayed responding to the violence.
Since this was clearly a Republican operation (that also included other white nationalist groups that are Republican-adjacent), no Republican can be trusted to investigate the party’s actions in a fair way even if they disagreed with it. Stated plainly, no Republican should hold a spot on the Jan 6 Commission.
That they are on this commission rests on the baseless assumption that it makes sense to reach out to moderate, reasonable members of the modern Republican party. But there are no reasonable Republicans anymore. The two GOP members of the Committee are right wing extremists who voted the Trump agenda well over 90% of the time. In other words, their disagreements with Trump are merely disagreements over how to implement authoritarianism in the United States, not whether. And who will be in power.
Of course, I fully understand the tactical thinking behind having the Republicans on the Commission. But I think it is terrible tactical thinking and also morally bankrupt.
Why is it bad tactically? Three reasons immediately come to mind. No one should be surprised if at least one of these wingnuts resigned in protest over shock, shock! “the Commission’s leftist agenda.” And there’s another problem with this tactic: tolerance of these two members of a criminal party suggests that somehow we can transform that group of thugs into reasoned, thoughtful colleagues in small-d democratic governance. That, history proves, is a delusion when dealing with any authoritarian party. Third, providing them space on this Commission normalizes not Republicanism, that’s long dead, but modern Republicanism, which merely quibbles with the methods of Trumpism, not its goals.
As for the moral dimension: the world has seen over and again what horrors the authoritarian far right is capable of. It is simply inexcusable to consciously provide them another sounding board for their madness.
If we must continue to have Republicans on the Commission, then I see no reason to trust them with starring roles in the proceedings — they should be ignored. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument only, that they are capable of, some day, behaving like Americans. Then let them watch how actual Americans, like Schiff and Raskin, behave — and learn how it’s done. But as long as they are comfortable remaining Republicans, they are comfortable being members of the same party that instigated and perpetrated this awful attack. No matter what they say, they cannot be trusted to take this investigation seriously. **
I know this is a contrarian view and I know it will not be a popular one, not even among my most liberal/progressive friends. But I think we minimize the danger of these so-called “moderate” Republicans at our peril. They are authoritarian extremists and they cannot be trusted.
*In fact, at Hitler’s trial for the putsch, “The lay judges were fanatically pro-Nazi and had to be dissuaded by the presiding Judge, Georg Neithardt, from acquitting Hitler.[39] Hitler and Hess were both sentenced to five years in Festungshaft (‘fortress confinement’) for treason. Festungshaft was the mildest of the three types of jail sentence available in German law at the time…This was the customary sentence for those whom the judge believed to have had honourable but misguided motives… Hitler served only a little over eight months of this sentence before his early release for good behaviour.” Had Nazi sympathizers not been his judges, and Hitler actually received the punishment he deserved…
** I am, as always, happy to be proven wrong. If these Republicans remain on the Commission, if the final report is thorough and honest (meaning it investigates and names high Republicans in government other than Trump that participated in coordination, planning, and support), and if they sign it without qualifications, I’d be delighted to change my tune.