How the January 6 commission could put Republicans back in the White House

 There’s a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. Democrats may eventually find that is the case with the January 6 commission’s investigation into Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election.

If you haven’t been following the January 6 commission hearings, you should. That’s especially true if you don’t believe that the insurrection was a big deal or if you still think that Democrats stole the election. There is abundant evidence that Donald Trump and his inner circle knew that they had lost the election and engaged in a cynical attempt to undermine public faith in the electoral process as well as throw out millions of legitimate votes. Those crimes against our Republic should not go unpunished.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

And much of the evidence against Trump does not come from his critics but from his friends. Witnesses such as former attorney general Bill Barr, former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, and even Ivanka Trump have testified that there was no widespread voter fraud and that Donald Trump knew it. Law-abiding Republicans tried to stop Trump’s coup attempt, but most were ultimately forced out.

I don’t know if the investigation will ultimately lead to Donald Trump’s indictment, but members of the committee have said that they believe that there is enough evidence to lodge criminal charges against Trump for his actions in the post-election period. While I would like to see Trump held accountable, I also think that the government should be very careful in accusing him. Trump has already survived two impeachments and a criminal acquittal would only increase his mythos. If Trump is to be indicted, it should be a slam-dunk case.

A criminal case does have different rules than an impeachment. The senators who vote in an impeachment trial are free to ignore the facts and vote based on partisan considerations. A jury, on the other hand, should consider the facts and applicable law when deciding a case, but I’m sure that any trial lawyer can tell you that juries can be very unpredictable.

At this point, I’m skeptical that Donald Trump will ever stand before a jury (although I think that in a perfect world he should), but the fallout from the January 6 investigation could end his political hopes nonetheless. There are signs that some Republicans are starting to sour on Trump and the investigation’s revelations could speed that process along.

As I watched the fallout of the insurrection in January 2021, I saw and heard from a great many friends and relatives, most of them devout Republicans, that they would never vote for Donald Trump again. How many will still feel that way in November of 2024 against a Democrat who will be labeled as a socialist, pro-abortion groomer is an unknown, but I’m pretty certain that it would be enough to sink Trump in the general election, although not necessarily the primary.

Trump, a candidate who always have extremely large negatives, now has the weight of an insurrection and coup attempt added to all of his other faults. This would be too much for even many Republicans to accept.

So if the January 6 investigation forces The Former Guy out of the 2024 presidential race, it might actually be a good thing for Republicans. You’d think that forcing out a corrupt and incompetent narcissist would be a good thing by default, but the problem is that the GOP is tied to Trump’s base. If Republicans jettison the disgraced former president, a large share of their voters stay home in protest.

The best thing for Republicans may be to have the January 6 commission do their dirty work for them. By airing Trump’s dirty laundry to the nation, a third Trump run can be forestalled and the Republicans who don’t really like Trump but also don’t want to cross him get to keep their hands clean.

Brit Hume seems to realize this. The Fox News analyst recently mused that if the investigators made it impossible for Trump to run again “they might find out they’ve done the GOP a great service because I think a great number of Republicans think they can’t win with Trump at the head of the ticket again. They’re afraid of his supporters and don’t want to come out against him directly, but they’d like him to go away.”

Acyn @Acyn

Hume: If they succeed by staining him such that he is unable for legal or political reasons to run again, they might find out they’ve done the GOP a great service because I think a great number of Republicans think they can’t win with Trump… they’d like him to go away

June 13th 2022

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It’s almost as if the January 6 committee is doing what it believes is best for the country in shining the light on the Trump Administration’s corruption and putting partisan interests aside. Imagine that!

That only goes so far though. Democrats want to run against MAGA candidates rather than traditional conservatives and there are indications that some Democratic candidates are boosting Trumpist candidates because they believe they will be easier to beat in the fall. This may be too smart by half since Hillary Clinton’s campaign to elevate Donald Trump is how we got into this mess in the first place.

At this point, one of our national priorities should be ending Donald Trump’s political career. After more than half a decade of watching Republicans rationalize, justify, and defend Donald Trump’s excesses, I’m no longer a fan of the GOP, but the fact that ending Trump’s political career may be good for Republicans doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it. Getting Trump - and Trumpism - out of politics is the best thing for the country.

But getting Donald Trump out of politics and getting Trumpism out of the GOP are two different things. The January 6 investigations may accomplish the first, but it will take voters in both Republican primaries and general elections to put an end to the lawless populism and unprincipled politics of the current GOP. It is now clear that the struggle to redeem and deprogram the Republican Party will long outlast Donald Trump himself.

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More political violence was narrowly averted over the weekend. This time it was white supremacists in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Police responded to a report of “a little army” getting into a U-Haul van near a gay pride event with riot shields and masks. When police arrived, they arrested 31 members of the Texas-based Patriot Front.

I saw many Republicans posting online and questioning the charges stemming from the planned riot, but police say that the conspiracy to commit violence was detailed in an “operations plan.”

“They even had an operations plan to detail their actions once they arrived at the Pride event,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White told reporters.

“They talked about entering the park and immediately confronting people; as soon as they met some level of resistance, they were going to release smoke grenades,” he added.

The attempted attack comes shortly after another failed attack, this one on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home. That failed assassination attempt came mere weeks after an adherent to the racist “replacement theory” killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo.

The warning signs on the political landscape are flashing red Extremists on both sides are becoming more and more likely to resort to violence. Partisans also seem less likely than ever to condemn violence by their own side or even acknowledge that it exists.

The correct answer to condemn and try to stop violence from both ends of the political spectrum. Rioting in the name of BLM was wrong, as was the attack on Congress. Killing Supreme Court justices is wrong. So is killing people because of the color of their skin or attacking them because of their sexual orientation.

We need to call these people on both sides what they really are: Domestic terrorists.

We really need to defuse the current political situation by toning down the extremist, end of the world rhetoric. Some people actually believe what politicians and pundits say.

From the Racket

A bipartisan deal on guns

 The big news over the weekend was that the logjam on guns seems to have been broken in the Senate. On Sunday, a bipartisan group of senators announced a framework for a deal to address some pressing concerns in the battle against shooting sprees and mass murders. The group is significant because the Gang of 20 (as I’m sure they will be dubbed) contains 10 Republicans, which is enough to break a filibuster.

Photo by Toxic Player on Unsplash

The deal has not yet been drafted into a bill, but numerous sources have reported on the terms of the compromise. These include:

• Funding to help states implement or improve red flag laws

• Funding for mental health and suicide prevention programs

• Closing the “boyfriend loophole” to stipulate that people in relationships that did not include marriage, children, or cohabitation be banned from owning guns if they are convicted of domestic violence

• Including juvenile mental health and legal records as part of background checks for prospective gun buyers from 18-21 years old

• Expanding the scope of businesses that are required to be licensed as firearms dealers, which would require these businesses to conduct background checks

• More funding for school security and violence prevention in schools

All in all, the framework seems to be a good compromise that addresses the ability of high-risk individuals to obtain guns while preserving the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners. The devil may emerge in the details as the bill is written, but the proposal seems reasonable at this stage.

The compromise is good in that in that it focuses on areas that have been identified as problems. As I discussed a few weeks ago, the data shows that 80 percent of spree killers exhibit red flags such as mental health problems and/or histories of violent or threatening behavior. It is these people that we should be focusing on and not the vast majority who use their guns peacefully.

The agreement is as notable for what it does not contain as for what it does. There is no attempt at an “assault weapons” ban or an increase to the age requirement for purchasing an AR-style rifle. There is also no attempt to ban or confiscate weapons more generally. Therein may lie the rub.

If the Republicans remain in the Gang of 20 as the bill is written and winds its way through Congress, the legislation may come under attack from the left. Progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may find the compromise uninspiring in that it doesn’t go far enough. There may be Democrats who hold out for an “assault weapons” ban even though that bill would surely go down in flames.

Often in Congress, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Stalwarts in both parties reject compromises as imperfect and vote them down in favor of “perfect” bills that can never pass. This is choosing to do nothing. Such a choice keeps the problem alive and also preserves donations from interest groups and voters. There is money to be made in not solving America’s problems.

On the other hand, some in Congress realize that a partisan wish list isn’t going to become law in a closely divided Congress and that baby steps are better than no steps. The Democrats should have learned this lesson with the failure of the partisan Build Back Better bill. They should have learned this lesson, but I’m not sure that they have.

Still, the Democrats are less than five months away from a shellacking in this year’s midterms. As Samuel Johnson once wrote, “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Democrats need a victory heading into the election and the gun compromise could provide it. If, that is, the wrangling between the progressives and the Joe Manchin - Kyrsten Sinema bloc does not scuttle the deal.

I’m encouraged by the Senate compromise. It almost seems like some members of the Senate have looked at the data and actually want to do some good for their country rather than just produce soundbites to “own” the opposition and curry donations from the viewers on MSNBC or Fox News.

I’m not under any illusion that the compromise will end mass killing sprees, but it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, the deal will survive the process of being written into a bill and eventually become law. It would be a refreshing change to see the government work as it is supposed to for a change and in this case, it might just save both innocent lives as well as our Second Amendment rights.

From the Racket