Listening to the hearing today, I’m wondering to what extent it is deliberately set up to drive a wedge between the Conservative elite (by which I include Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy along with people like John Thune and Elise Stefanik and Doug Ducey and Greg Abbott, and also people like Grover Norquist and Brent Bozell and Sheldon Adelson and Robert Mercer and the Kochs and Steve Wynn) and the MAGA movement (which I can’t even begin to define). They seem to be putting a lot of effort into making the case that Donald Trump, specifically, was barely under control, and that in general an autocratic President would be, almost by definition, very difficult to control—and that it was the “establishment” Republicans, specifically Mike Pence and his advisors, who kept the events of January Sixth from getting much worse.
And I wonder to what extent this wedge is intended to work both sides… that is, it is more or less explicitly addressing the Conservative elite with respect and even honor, but presumably the MAGA supporters who are hearing this, through whatever filters, are hearing that it was that elite who thwarted them and their desire to overturn what they believed (and believe) to be the illegitimate election.
Today’s hearing, particularly, seemed like a Mike Pence primary infomercial (“He fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith”). And the implied endorsement of the Select Committee—the implied endorsement of the Democrats and “establishment” Republicans such as Greg Jacob—might actually be designed to make people in the MAGA movement even more angry and distrustful of the Conservative elite, and to push them and their electoral and financial support to more extremist candidates and Parties, thus weakening both groups.
I don’t know if that’s what the Committee is thinking. I don’t know if it matters what they’re thinking. But that’s what crossed my mind.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.