Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican “leader” who’s still taking his cues from the disgraced insurrectionist-in-chief, did us a favor this week when he tried to put some clowns and crackpots on the Jan. 6 committee. His failed effort signaled anew that the authoritarian cult does not intend to take the probe seriously, has no interest in finding out how and why the attempted Capitol coup happened, and would prefer that we never learn who in high places was guilty of stoking the worst internal attack on American democracy since the Civil War.
The bottom line is that the cult’s mouthpieces on the Hill want to sustain the coverup. Fine. Better that they fume from the sidelines than undermine the probe from within.
At least we’ll be spared the spectacle of Jim “Gym” Jordan taking up valuable time by yapping like a chihuahua on amphetamines. He deserves to be a witness, not a panelist – given the fact that he repeatedly amplified the lies that sparked the insurrection, and that he reportedly met with Trump at the White House in December, to explore ways to foil Joe Biden’s electoral victory. No wonder Nancy Pelosi (a target of the insurrectionists) nixed Jordan from the committee. Would you want Harvey Weinstein to serve on a task force investigating sexual assults?
It was the same deal with Jim Banks – another House Republican who, like Jordan, had refused to certify Biden’s win. McCarthy tried to put him on the committee as well. Banks made it clear yesterday – before Pelosi rejected him – that he planned to sabotage the probe’s search for the truth, declaring that the committee was created “solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda.” (The Left’s authoritarian agenda?)
Oh, and lest we forget: McCarthy, Jordan, and Banks all voted No in May when Democrats sought to create a bipartisan commission (a deal negotiated with a high-ranking House Republican). The commission idea went down in flames when it was filibustered to death by Senate Republicans. Pelosi’s Jan. 6 committee is Plan B, McCarthy tried to wreck it at the outset with the likes of Jordan and Banks, and now that Jordan and Banks have been rightly rejected, McCarthy’s last play is to denounce the whole probe (“this panel has lost all legitimacy and credibility!”), much the way Woody Allen in Bananas fumed about “a travesty of a mockery of a sham.”
What a joke that guy is. Back on Jan. 13, McCarthy had a brief moment of clarity: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by (Trump) to accept his share of responsibility.” But there he was yesterday, ranting about the injustice of the Jan. 6 probe, with Trump’s shoe polish on his tongue.
(There was one hilarious sideshow yesterday. In some quarters of the Washington press corps, Pelosi’s refusal to eat McCarthy’s shit sandwich was seen as a bad thing. Chris Cillizza of CNN actually wrote this: “Nancy Pelosi just doomed the already tiny chances of the 1/6 committee actually mattering.” Rachael Bade of Politico wrote: “Pelosi’s move to reject GOP picks for the 1/6 panel is going to be a gift to Kevin McCarthy in the long run.” Apparently the holy grail of bipartisanship is supposed to be worshipped even when it’s a fraud. Tim Miller, a former Jeb Bush spokesman, had the best tweeted rebuttal: ” ‘There need to be people on the 1/6 committee who literally supported a MAGA coup or else it’s not bipartisan’ has got to be the stupidest Beltway brain bleed take in a while.”)
But I digressed.
Truth is, the cultists remain out of sync with mainstream America; according to a new CBS News poll, 67 percent say that the people who attacked the Capitol were “trying to overturn the election.” Only 29 percent described the attack as “patriotism.” If mainstream America turns out in droves for the ’22 midterm elections, it’s reasonable to believe that our democracy will survive.
But the GOP believes that, by hewing to the Big Lie and assailing whatever truths emerge from the Jan. 6 probe, they will inspire the mob to overwhelm the opposition at the ballot box (with help from the new vote-suppression laws), and thus continue to craft incremental fascism in plain sight. George Orwell is buckling his seat belt for a bumpy ride.