My hand’s up for contempt
Opposing forces are dug in deep. Whatever Rep. Bennie Thompson’s (D-Miss.) investigative committee presents beginning this week on the Jan. 6 insurrection and its planning is not likely to sway those whose minds are locked like a steel safe.
Benghazi Republicans will insist the committee is illegitimate. They are already preparing counter-programming to focus on economic and cultural issues. The former president will issue more caps-littered press releases and urge the MAGA faithful to defend his honor. Steve Bannon will “weaponize” whatever he hasn’t already weaponized.
Jim Jordan will be Jim Jordan. Fox News will be Fox News.
Televised hearings begin Thursday at 8 p.m.
Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman advise Democrats to push back. Hard. Hammer them both as bad-faith actors and as complicit (Washington Post):
Democrats need a strategy to push back. Whatever they do should foreground a simple truth: Many Republicans were either complicit in Trump’s effort to destroy our constitutional order to remain in power illegitimately, have since worked hard to cover it up or both.
So Republicans have zero credibility on these matters, and they should be granted zero standing to address them. Democrats need to say this clearly and forcefully.
The news media will be possessed by a powerful urge to present all of this in the familiar “he said, she said” style that gives equal weight to both sides of an argument, regardless of what each side is saying.
The very Republican players protesting too much will be those implicated in planning, supporting, covering up for and excusing the attempted coup. Jordan among them.
What’s more, as many as a dozen House Republicans were reportedly involved in Trump’s effort to overturn the election in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. And GOP leaders such as McCarthy are refusing to honor a lawful congressional subpoena in order to keep direct knowledge of Trump’s state of mind during the violent insurrection attempt shielded from the public.
These Republicans, of course, have the right to make their case. But they don’t have a right to have their inevitably fantastical, bad-faith-saturated claims passed on to readers and viewers uncritically.
The media should take especial care not to treat Republicans’ “absurdly transparent effort to muddy the waters” as anything other than a sideshow.
“Their BS deserves nothing but pure contempt,” Sargent tweeted.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.
If in a position to Play to win in 2022 (see post first), contact tpostsully at gmail dot com.