If you truly want to know what’s at stake as Republicans refuse to acknowledge the many, many gives Democrats are making for them in an attempt to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the domestic terrorist attack incited upon our country on January 6th by former President Donald Trump because he didn’t like the results of an election he lost, listen up.
Former Republican strategist turned Never Trumper and Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson is warning Democrats like only someone who truly understands Republicans can: “Here’s what you don’t get; the Trump GOP as comprised today isn’t stupid. It’s evil. They’re smart. They’ll play to your goodwill and instinct for a bipartisan veneer on the Jan 6th issue…
when Speaker Greene takes office, let me know how that bipartisan circle jerk worked out for you.”
His thread:
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1/ Of *course* Qevin McCarthy opposes a bipartisan January 6th Commission.
If the Democrats have the stones to pull it off — an open question, TBH — it will make Benghazi look like a sewing circle.
2/ They can’t possibly look inside the reality of that day and maintain the Big Lie. They can’t admit to the clear causality of Trump unleashing his mob. It opens them to personal, moral, and political liability for that day.
3/ More important in their minds is something darker.They see the majority in their grasp, and just as they did in the states this year, they’ll strike quickly, mercilessly, and without a moment of hesitation of a scintilla of shame to make the next election the last.
4/ For them, the problem wasn’t an attack on our republic and a democratic election. For Kevin and Co, the problem was that it didn’t work the first time. They need the shock and awe, the spectacle, the Trumphadi terror threat out there.
5/ This zero-sum game of power/not-power is what the Democrats never, ever, ever grasp. This year in the states, the GOP — directed and assisted by Heritage Action — has passed sweeping voter restrictions.Democrats couldn’t mount a response. They played defense.
6/ Even now, too many think policy will save them. “But our climate plan” or “but our control gun plan” or “but our daycare plan” isn’t politics. It’s masturbation.The bad guys are willing to send people to kill you and you respond with a white paper? GTFO.
7/ This is why the Democrats should stop negotiation over a January 6th commission and just freaking DO it.Do you think some kind of bipartisan comity and goodwill will be lost somehow? THEY SENT PEOPLE TO KILL YOU. Get a goddamned grip.
Play offense. Drag them.
8/ Here’s what you don’t get; the Trump GOP as comprised today isn’t stupid. It’s evil. They’re smart. They’ll play to your goodwill and instinct for a bipartisan veneer on the Jan 6th issue.They’re conning you.
9/ Stop fucking around. Announce the panel. START.Don’t delay. Time is fleeting, and 2022 is roaring into position. You need to nationalize the election over, you know, the little things like whether it’s ok to send a violent, armed mob to the Capitol to overthrow an election.
10/ Washington is a city desperate for an illusion of normalcy and old-school transactional politics. The 2022 election will be defined by someone, very soon. If you want it to be about Antifaaaaaaaaaaaaa and BLM and imaginary conspiracy horseshit, keep on delaying.
11/ But when Speaker Greene takes office, let me know how that bipartisan circle jerk worked out for you.
12/ done
As I have been warning since before Trump took his fragile ego to D.C. to enrich himself, it is not possible to compromise with people like this. And “people like this” are what the entire (elected) Republican Party has become.
People like this do not want the same thing as Democrats do: They are not looking for a functioning democracy. They are looking for power. They are the abusive spouse in a physically violent marriage. They want control, not love.
There is no negotiating with “these people” because they don’t want the same thing.
Democrats need to grab the power the people have given them and ride it hard, because Wilson is correct: Time is ticking. The 2022 election could hand power back to House Republicans and if that happens, democracy as we know it will die the death the Trump terrorists sought on January 6th.
The people gave Democrats power, and yet again, Democrats are too afraid to use it. Democrats want to return to the era of decency, as do most of us. But that is simply not possible with this group of Trumpists. They must be taken down.
Republicans only respect power when it is their own. Democrats have power, they need to use it. Republicans will only understand that they can’t attack lawmakers and democracy if they lose the only thing they value: Power.
Republicans do not care about January 6th, because domestic terrorism when they lose an election is justified. That is also the entire reason they can’t be in power to investigate their own terrorism.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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