GOP Plans to Subvert Elections as January 6 Select Committee Sets Final Hearing
We have a political party whose leadership has bought into the “snitches get stitches” philosophy
On Thursday (at 10am PDT) the House Select Committee Investigating the events of January 6, 2021 will be holding what’s expected to be its tenth and final hearing. This event was originally scheduled for September 23, but was postponed as hurricane Ian roared toward a member district in Florida.
Congressman Jamie Raskin has hinted that additional information about connections between longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone and domestic extremist groups have come to light in the committee’s investigation. Rep. Bennie Thompson has also been quoted as saying the 800,000 pages of materials gathered from the Secret Service in response to a subpoena contain significant information.
There will be no witnesses, although media reports indicate that new evidence will be entered into the record. The format for the meeting, namely all nine committee members being given time for speechifying as opposed to two members running the show, tells me that what we’ll be seeing is a preview of the interim report expected before the November general election.
The general election “date” amounts to an artificial marker, since much of the country is already voting or will vote in advance of November 8. And it would be wise to lower expectations, as various committee members speaking anonymously to the media have indicated that beyond some legislative recommendations, they’re deferring to the Department of Justice for further actions. It’s not even clear that a consensus has been achieved about making specific referrals for prosecution.
Now if you’re like me, you’re thinking this is bad news. Donald Trump’s attempted coup may bring not much in the way of consequences.
What seem to be obvious abominations are not likely to draw the kinds of responses that you’d expect. It’s a slippery slope, one that’s allowed the abnormal to become normal as the political stenographers in DC insert modifying phrases obscuring the reality of what they’re reporting.
Thus a sitting United States Senator (Tuberville) appearing at a Nevada rally for the former president can make unabashedly racist statements about Black people, and CNN will say they were “racially charged.” At another rally in Arizona, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., promoted the white nationalists’ “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory and it’s apparently okay since the words were uttered in a promotion for the Dear Leader.
What’s abnormal for our democracy is becoming normal, and the Congressional investigation’s conclusions have already been discounted. So Rep. Marcus Raskin will make some fiery speeches and everybody will go home, satisfied they have done their job.
I know the wheels of justice grind slowly, and that any prosecutable culpability for the events of Jan 6 is a complex process. There are cases pending (and arrests are still being made) of those who committed illegal acts as part of the mob that stormed the Capitol.
We have a political party whose leadership has bought into the “snitches get stitches” philosophy at the heart of the former president’s lifelong strategy for all his endeavors. Even when it’s reported that a would-be witness is cooperating (with either the DOJ or the Select Committee), it appears as though most suffer from memory lapses or simply lie their way through the process.
I think there’s a great “middle” in the government bureaucracy, afraid to act boldly, lest 2024 bring a return to the Trump years, along with already promised purges.
In conclusion, I’m sad to say the gig is up when it comes to consequences for the gang that couldn’t pull the coup off. Loyalty was more important than competency; the price to be paid will amount to legal fees for most and a few jail sentences for the ground troops, but the lessons learned in January were valuable for the enemies of democracy.
The right won’t be looking to repeat the mistakes of 2020, where the election results were challenged after the votes had been counted. In 2024, they plan to steal the election by stopping votes from being counted in the first place.
Fringies like Steve Bannon are actively promoting a plan on his podcast to sign up as poll workers in the hope that the MAGA movement can seize the electoral apparatus in this country precinct by precinct.
According to a recent report:
ProPublica contacted GOP leaders in 65 key counties, and 41 reported an unusual increase in signups since Bannon’s campaign began. At least 8,500 new Republican precinct officers (or equivalent lowest-level officials) joined those county parties. We also looked at equivalent Democratic posts and found no similar surge.
I owe it to Dan Fieffer’s Message Box newsletter for this information. Fortunately, he also has a plan for pushing back against this nonsense:
For Republicans, the midterms are a dress rehearsal. For Democrats, the midterms are our last, best chance to cut them off at the pass. As the Washington Post documented last week, most Republican nominees on the ballot this fall are Big Lie proponents. Whether those folks win or not — particularly in the state and in offices that oversee elections — will help determine whether the winner of the 2024 election resides in the White House in 2025. I imagine there is a level of exhaustion in knowing that democracy depends on every election, but these are the times in which we live. The stakes will remain incredibly high up until the moment the Republicans are forced to walk away from MAGA extremism due to multiple asskickings in a row. The only language they understand is brute political force. Our opportunities to deliver that message come every two years. None of us chose to live at a hinge point in history, but we do.
In an effort to be more constructive than yelling “Vote!” at the top of my digital lungs, I want to offer four specific courses of action:
First, go to Vote Save America to find volunteer and donation opportunities related to the most important races and organizations protecting the vote.
Second, support Run For Something, which is working with local progressive candidates and focusing on the local offices in charge of election administration.
Third, sign up to be a poll watcher via Power the Polls
Finally, find the people in your life and convince them to vote like their democracy depended on it. Because it does (annoyingly).
Email me at: WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com