Greg Sargent nails it
The failure of Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) House Judiciary Committee hearing last week to generate any kind of coherent narrative might have been expected (Washington Post):
Blame it on the “MAGA persecution complex” — the vast array of outlets in the right-wing media ecosystem that incentivizes GOP lawmakers to pander to conservative victimization and grievance. It’s feasting on so many claims of persecution that it’s essentially eating itself to death.
At last week’s hearing, Republicans alleged that the FBI investigated conservative parents at school board meetings. (That’s entirely baseless.) They insisted FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, a registered Republican, personally sicced the FBI on conservatives. (Wray called this “insane.”) They claimed the FBI has eagerly persecuted Trump. (The FBI has actually been rule-bound and cautious.) They railed that FBI plants incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. (The central evidence of this has collapsed.)
Republicans even insisted the FBI is riddled with anti-Catholic bias based on a field-level memo about radical right-wing Catholics that is indeed problematic. But Wray admitted to a serious error, declaring it subject to internal review. Presenting one example of abuse at a huge agency as proof of another vast conspiracy is silly.
And so on. “The zone-flooding conspiratorial antics will keep on coming. The MAGA persecution complex requires no less,” Greg Sargent concludes.
Grievance is in the right’s DNA as much as the South’s loss in the Civil War. I’m sorry, The War of Northern Aggression.