The Runback: The Madness That Doesn't Abate
Three years after January 6th, too many Republicans live in a fantasy world where their putschists were the good guys.
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News and Politics
Yes. And No. The Sun asks if a fractured Maryland GOP win any statewide race. The answer is complicated
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Klacik PAC Fundraiser to Feature QAnon Candidate Who Exaggerated Service Record: All in all, it’s just another day for Klacik who views self-promotion as the biggest thing she can achieve in the conservative movement.
Ex-Republican Don Quinn Resurfaces to Run for Congress: Don Quinn was a controversial Republican State Senate Candidate in 2014
Sports
Ten Years Ago, A Phantom Title Change: When is a title change not a title change? When WWE Never Acknowledges It
The Monday Thought
"The lie is so big that it reorders the world. And so part of telling the big lie is that you immediately say it's the other side that tells the big lie. Sadly, but it's just a matter of record, all of that is in Mein Kampf."
Timothy Snyder
It was three years ago on Saturday when the world sat stunned at what can only be described as an attempted coup d’etat at the United States Capitol.
I wrote the day it went down: “Never forget that this is the riot Donald Trump wanted.”
Not only do people actively forget that it is the riot that Trump happened, it has become a celebrated event on the right.
I mean, the third highest ranking Republican in Congress. called the people who are in jail for their actions on January 6th hostages, for crying out loud. And why? Because Trump called them Hostages.
Three years ago, in the days after the January 6th attacks, Republicans were generally united in their disapproval of the attacks and their belief that those who were involved in the riot needed to be punished. Even Charlie Kirk said they should be prosecuted, and he paid to send them there.
But the Republicans capitulated, as they often have done in the last ten years when Donald Trump makes a boneheaded political decision. They rally around their dear leader.
That’s why the Missouri Secretary of State is threatening to remove Joe Biden from the ballot for “insurrection”. Purely as retaliation for Trump being removed from the ballot in Colorado and Maine.
It’s why Trump thinks he can get away with not signing a pro forma oath in Illinois. Why? Because he won’t promise to not advocate overthrowing the government.
It’s why a former Republican U.S. Senate nominee can go out and say “wants to see the United States turned into a hereditary "theocratic monarchy" under the control of the Trump family”
It’s why Judicial Watch filed a $30 million wrongful death suit on behalf of Ashli Babbitt’s family, despite the fact that witnesses (including Republican Markwayne Mullin) acknowledged that the shooting while tragic was necessary.
This is all total madness. Everybody knows what they saw that day. Democrats and Republicans all saw a mob working at the behest of the President of the United States attempt to end the peaceful transfer of power. Instead of supporting the prosecution of those who were involved, Republican politicians have instead adopted blinders and regurgitated a narrative they not only know not to be true but is as dangerous as the January 6th event themselves. They weaken our country and the rule of law with a head-in-the-sand attitude about the event and, above all, their yellow-bellied obsequiousness to their God-King Trump.
If all of this seems like a disjointed mess of thoughts, you’re not wrong. The entire episode and the Republicans inability to reckon with it is one of the most baffling, most infuriating, most dangerous, most pathetic episodes in American history. God have mercy on us with whatever is coming next.
“Standing by the Big Lie that led to January 6th is the price of admission into the GOP. You have to either believe the election was stolen or pretend to believe it. Apocalyptic rhetoric and kooky conspiracies are the norm. According to a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, 7 in 10 Republican voters believe the 2020 election was stolen and more than one-third believe the conspiracy theory that the FBI “organized and encouraged the attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
The process by which the Republican Party went from shunning Trump to embracing him and his authoritarian, anti-democratic rhetoric happened steadily and stunningly. Trump’s second rise to power is a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the Republican Party. Trump didn’t reclaim the Republican Party by force. Instead, party leaders handed it to him out of cynical convenience and pure cowardice.”