January 6, 2021: Insurrection or “normal tourist” visitation?

[Farfromgeneva]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

[youthathletics]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

Actually I have no reason to believe it is not accurate, you?

The last thing I want to be aligned with personally, is anything similarly to that of a politician. Which is why I believe it is quite easy to reasonably assume they do not have our interest at heart, but rather their own.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

Actually I have no reason to believe it is not accurate, you?

The last thing I want to be aligned with personally, is anything similarly to that of a politician. Which is why I believe it is quite easy to reasonably assume they do not have our interest at heart, but rather their own.

Trump wasn’t a politician.

[seacoaster]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

Actually I have no reason to believe it is not accurate, you?

The last thing I want to be aligned with personally, is anything similarly to that of a politician. Which is why I believe it is quite easy to reasonably assume they do not have our interest at heart, but rather their own.

I think McCarthy got himself in a box: he couldn't support a "bipartisan" commission, because he had to continue to support the Corollary Lie -- that the storming of the Capitol had nothing to do with Trump's incitement, nothing to do with McCarthy's spineless complicity with it, and nothing to do with members of his caucus's plain and ardent support of it (hi Mo Brooks!!). And now he can't support the Pelosi select committee and will have to do everything to discredit it among his FNC mouth breathing caucus and constituency. His stupidity -- and he really is as dumb as a bag of rocks -- in the news conference the other day was on its usual display: there are many questions to answer about the events of January 6...but no way to get those answers because...Trump and Corollary Lie. Imagine this guy as the Speaker.

[youthathletics]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

Actually I have no reason to believe it is not accurate, you?

The last thing I want to be aligned with personally, is anything similarly to that of a politician. Which is why I believe it is quite easy to reasonably assume they do not have our interest at heart, but rather their own.

I think McCarthy got himself in a box: he couldn't support a "bipartisan" commission, because he had to continue to support the Corollary Lie -- that the storming of the Capitol had nothing to do with Trump's incitement, nothing to do with McCarthy's spineless complicity with it, and nothing to do with members of his caucus's plain and ardent support of it (hi Mo Brooks!!). And now he can't support the Pelosi select committee and will have to do everything to discredit it among his FNC mouth breathing caucus and constituency. His stupidity -- and he really is as dumb as a bag of rocks -- in the news conference the other day was on its usual display: there are many questions to answer about the events of January 6...but no way to get those answers because...Trump and Corollary Lie. Imagine this guy as the Speaker.

Thanks for your reply seacoaster. Sadly, the very things you describe, about McCarthy, are the very things that are appealing to many in their caucus'...why? b/c, for the most part, they all flirt with behaviors that are unscrupulous, dissociative disorder and NPD tendencies.

[cradleandshoot]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

Actually I have no reason to believe it is not accurate, you?

The last thing I want to be aligned with personally, is anything similarly to that of a politician. Which is why I believe it is quite easy to reasonably assume they do not have our interest at heart, but rather their own.

I think McCarthy got himself in a box: he couldn't support a "bipartisan" commission, because he had to continue to support the Corollary Lie -- that the storming of the Capitol had nothing to do with Trump's incitement, nothing to do with McCarthy's spineless complicity with it, and nothing to do with members of his caucus's plain and ardent support of it (hi Mo Brooks!!). And now he can't support the Pelosi select committee and will have to do everything to discredit it among his FNC mouth breathing caucus and constituency. His stupidity -- and he really is as dumb as a bag of rocks -- in the news conference the other day was on its usual display: there are many questions to answer about the events of January 6...but no way to get those answers because...Trump and Corollary Lie. Imagine this guy as the Speaker.

Thanks for your reply seacoaster. Sadly, the very things you describe, about McCarthy, are the very things that are appealing to many in their caucus'...why? b/c, for the most part, they all flirt with behaviors that are unscrupulous, dissociative disorder and NPD tendencies.

Good rant YA.

[seacoaster]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

Actually I have no reason to believe it is not accurate, you?

The last thing I want to be aligned with personally, is anything similarly to that of a politician. Which is why I believe it is quite easy to reasonably assume they do not have our interest at heart, but rather their own.

I think McCarthy got himself in a box: he couldn't support a "bipartisan" commission, because he had to continue to support the Corollary Lie -- that the storming of the Capitol had nothing to do with Trump's incitement, nothing to do with McCarthy's spineless complicity with it, and nothing to do with members of his caucus's plain and ardent support of it (hi Mo Brooks!!). And now he can't support the Pelosi select committee and will have to do everything to discredit it among his FNC mouth breathing caucus and constituency. His stupidity -- and he really is as dumb as a bag of rocks -- in the news conference the other day was on its usual display: there are many questions to answer about the events of January 6...but no way to get those answers because...Trump and Corollary Lie. Imagine this guy as the Speaker.

Thanks for your reply seacoaster. Sadly, the very things you describe, about McCarthy, are the very things that are appealing to many in their caucus'...why? b/c, for the most part, they all flirt with behaviors that are unscrupulous, dissociative disorder and NPD tendencies.

Yep YA, you may be right. I would -- all evidence I suppose you think to the contrary -- really prefer a GOP with a brain, with some policy chops.

Hope you have a good long weekend and drink a little more bourbon that maybe you should.

[youthathletics]

Ramping up of the 22' rhetoric.

Have you watched the NY Times video compilation?

Yes, which is part and parcel to my comment.

Please explain.

Maj. Leader D-Pelosi taps R-Cheney to serve on committee, creating distance from McCarthy/party...no issues with that, solid professional chess move. And with the last name Cheney...she needs to soften the edges anyhow. This next mid-term has consequences, and this helps Pelosi and Cheney.

Why do you think the Senate and House GOP leadership chose to veto the bipartisan (Meaning near equal representation on the committee) committee, when they knew the Speaker had the power to do this?

Might be because McCarthy has reasons beyond our understanding and/or he might be flexing for a more prominent future role.

Do you believe that? Do you think if you believe that then is your view that it is a sound strategy?

Actually I have no reason to believe it is not accurate, you?

The last thing I want to be aligned with personally, is anything similarly to that of a politician. Which is why I believe it is quite easy to reasonably assume they do not have our interest at heart, but rather their own.

I think McCarthy got himself in a box: he couldn't support a "bipartisan" commission, because he had to continue to support the Corollary Lie -- that the storming of the Capitol had nothing to do with Trump's incitement, nothing to do with McCarthy's spineless complicity with it, and nothing to do with members of his caucus's plain and ardent support of it (hi Mo Brooks!!). And now he can't support the Pelosi select committee and will have to do everything to discredit it among his FNC mouth breathing caucus and constituency. His stupidity -- and he really is as dumb as a bag of rocks -- in the news conference the other day was on its usual display: there are many questions to answer about the events of January 6...but no way to get those answers because...Trump and Corollary Lie. Imagine this guy as the Speaker.

Thanks for your reply seacoaster. Sadly, the very things you describe, about McCarthy, are the very things that are appealing to many in their caucus'...why? b/c, for the most part, they all flirt with behaviors that are unscrupulous, dissociative disorder and NPD tendencies.

Yep YA, you may be right. I would -- all evidence I suppose you think to the contrary -- really prefer a GOP with a brain, with some policy chops.

Hope you have a good long weekend and drink a little more bourbon that maybe you should.

Likewise.

[CU88]

July 6, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Jul 7

Six months ago today, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, intending to stop the counting of the certified ballots that would make Joseph R. Biden president and Kamala Harris vice president. This attack was unprecedented. It broke our nation’s long history of the peaceful transfer of power.

You know the story of that day. Former president Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, insisting that he had lost only because the election had been “stolen” from him, despite Biden’s decisive victory of more than 7 million votes and 74 electoral votes. He urged his supporters to stop Biden’s election from becoming official.

What has surprised me most in the six months since is how quickly the leaders of the Republican Party turned from establishing oligarchy—a process that the country has undergone in the past—to embracing authoritarianism, which it hasn’t.

Since 1986, Republican leaders have pushed policies that concentrate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands. In 1986, they began to talk of “voter integrity” measures that would cull Black voters from the rolls; by 1994, after the Democrats passed the Motor Voter Act allowing voter registration at state offices like the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Republicans began to say they were losing elections only because of “voter fraud.” Suppressing the vote became part of the Republican strategy for winning.

But voter suppression has a long history in America. Especially in the 1850s and the 1890s, political parties concerned about losing power cut their opponents out of the vote.

After the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, Republican leaders accepted the support of talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, who created a narrative in which Democrats were dangerous socialists, out to destroy home and family. With the establishment of the Fox News Channel in 1996, that narrative, shared not by reporters but by personalities behind sets meant to look like newsrooms, skewed reality for FNC viewers.

But promoting a false narrative through media is not new to the United States. Elite enslavers in the 1840s and 1850s similarly shaped what information their neighbors could hear.

In 2000, Republicans put into office George W. Bush, who had lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. The election came down to the state of Florida, where more than 100,000 voters had recently been removed from the voter rolls. A recount there stopped after a riot encouraged by Roger Stone, and the Supreme Court then decided in favor of Bush.

In 2016, Trump, too, lost the popular vote, but the distribution of those votes enabled him to win in the Electoral College.

But installing a president who has lost the popular vote is not new, either. In 1877 and 1889, presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison both took office after losing the popular vote, Hayes by 250,000 votes, Harrison by more than 100,000.

In 2010, Republican leaders used Operation REDMAP (the Redistricting Majority Project) to win control of swing state legislatures and deliver the states to the Republicans by gerrymandering them. It worked. After the 2010 election, Republicans controlled the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other, smaller states, and they redrew congressional maps using precise computer models. In the 2012 election, Republicans received 1.4 million fewer votes for the House than Democrats did, but won a 33 seat majority.

Still, gerrymandering has been around for so long it’s named for early Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, whose name a journalist mixed with “salamander” in 1812.

Taken together, all these old tactics, amplified by modern technology, enabled the Republican leadership to lay the foundation for an oligarchy. Beginning in 1981, wealth began to move upward significantly, reversing the trend from 1933 to 1980, when wealth compressed. By 2017, lawmakers who had initially opposed Trump appeared to come around when he backed a huge corporate tax cut and put three originalists who endorsed the Republican vision of America on the Supreme Court.

Then Trump lost the 2020 election.

Before January 6, Republican lawmakers seemed to humor the outgoing president as he refused to accept the outcome. Trump and his people launched and lost more than 60 lawsuits over the election. They tried to pressure election officials in both Georgia and Arizona to change the outcome in those states. They refused to start the normal transition process that would enable Biden and Harris to set up their administration. And Republican lawmakers, trying to court Trump’s help in the Georgia Senate special runoff elections of January 5, kept their mouths shut.

And then January 6 happened. At a rally on Washington, D.C.’s Ellipse, Trump lied to his supporters again and again that the election had been stolen “by emboldened radical-left Democrats.” “We will never give up, we will never concede,” he told them. “You don't concede when there's theft involved.” He promised (falsely) that Vice President Mike Pence could send the ballots back to the states for recertification in his favor, “and we become president and you are the happiest people.”

“[W]e're going to have to fight much harder,” he said, “ecause you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated…. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

“So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

In the ensuing crisis, lawmakers had to be rushed out of the chambers as rioters broke in. Five people died, and 140 police officers were injured. It could have been much worse: the insurrectionists erected a gallows for Pence. Nonetheless, even after the insurrection, 147 Republicans voted against certification of the electoral votes.

Still, at first, many Republican lawmakers appeared to condemn the events of January 6. But they quickly came around to defending the Big Lie that Trump won the election. That lie is behind the voter suppression measures enacted by a slew of Republican-dominated states, as well as the new measures in Arizona and Georgia that enable legislatures to have control over election results.

In the House, the Republicans removed Liz Cheney from a leadership position for her criticism of Trump and rejection of the Big Lie, replacing her with a Trump loyalist, tying House Republicans as a group to the former president. Republicans in the Senate came together to kill a bill to create a bipartisan, independent committee to investigate the events of January 6. Lawmakers and pundits are downplaying the insurrection itself, claiming either that it was not a big deal or that Democrats are using it to suppress rightwing activism.

And now, of the 700 Republicans who have filed paperwork to run for Congress next year, at least a third of them have backed the idea that Trump won the 2020 election.

In American history, the attempt to overturn our election procedures for one man, based on a lie, is unprecedented.

[cradleandshoot]

July 6, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Jul 7

Six months ago today, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, intending to stop the counting of the certified ballots that would make Joseph R. Biden president and Kamala Harris vice president. This attack was unprecedented. It broke our nation’s long history of the peaceful transfer of power.

You know the story of that day. Former president Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, insisting that he had lost only because the election had been “stolen” from him, despite Biden’s decisive victory of more than 7 million votes and 74 electoral votes. He urged his supporters to stop Biden’s election from becoming official.

What has surprised me most in the six months since is how quickly the leaders of the Republican Party turned from establishing oligarchy—a process that the country has undergone in the past—to embracing authoritarianism, which it hasn’t.

Since 1986, Republican leaders have pushed policies that concentrate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands. In 1986, they began to talk of “voter integrity” measures that would cull Black voters from the rolls; by 1994, after the Democrats passed the Motor Voter Act allowing voter registration at state offices like the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Republicans began to say they were losing elections only because of “voter fraud.” Suppressing the vote became part of the Republican strategy for winning.

But voter suppression has a long history in America. Especially in the 1850s and the 1890s, political parties concerned about losing power cut their opponents out of the vote.

After the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, Republican leaders accepted the support of talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, who created a narrative in which Democrats were dangerous socialists, out to destroy home and family. With the establishment of the Fox News Channel in 1996, that narrative, shared not by reporters but by personalities behind sets meant to look like newsrooms, skewed reality for FNC viewers.

But promoting a false narrative through media is not new to the United States. Elite enslavers in the 1840s and 1850s similarly shaped what information their neighbors could hear.

In 2000, Republicans put into office George W. Bush, who had lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. The election came down to the state of Florida, where more than 100,000 voters had recently been removed from the voter rolls. A recount there stopped after a riot encouraged by Roger Stone, and the Supreme Court then decided in favor of Bush.

In 2016, Trump, too, lost the popular vote, but the distribution of those votes enabled him to win in the Electoral College.

But installing a president who has lost the popular vote is not new, either. In 1877 and 1889, presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison both took office after losing the popular vote, Hayes by 250,000 votes, Harrison by more than 100,000.

In 2010, Republican leaders used Operation REDMAP (the Redistricting Majority Project) to win control of swing state legislatures and deliver the states to the Republicans by gerrymandering them. It worked. After the 2010 election, Republicans controlled the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other, smaller states, and they redrew congressional maps using precise computer models. In the 2012 election, Republicans received 1.4 million fewer votes for the House than Democrats did, but won a 33 seat majority.

Still, gerrymandering has been around for so long it’s named for early Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, whose name a journalist mixed with “salamander” in 1812.

Taken together, all these old tactics, amplified by modern technology, enabled the Republican leadership to lay the foundation for an oligarchy. Beginning in 1981, wealth began to move upward significantly, reversing the trend from 1933 to 1980, when wealth compressed. By 2017, lawmakers who had initially opposed Trump appeared to come around when he backed a huge corporate tax cut and put three originalists who endorsed the Republican vision of America on the Supreme Court.

Then Trump lost the 2020 election.

Before January 6, Republican lawmakers seemed to humor the outgoing president as he refused to accept the outcome. Trump and his people launched and lost more than 60 lawsuits over the election. They tried to pressure election officials in both Georgia and Arizona to change the outcome in those states. They refused to start the normal transition process that would enable Biden and Harris to set up their administration. And Republican lawmakers, trying to court Trump’s help in the Georgia Senate special runoff elections of January 5, kept their mouths shut.

And then January 6 happened. At a rally on Washington, D.C.’s Ellipse, Trump lied to his supporters again and again that the election had been stolen “by emboldened radical-left Democrats.” “We will never give up, we will never concede,” he told them. “You don't concede when there's theft involved.” He promised (falsely) that Vice President Mike Pence could send the ballots back to the states for recertification in his favor, “and we become president and you are the happiest people.”

“[W]e're going to have to fight much harder,” he said, “ecause you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated…. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

“So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

In the ensuing crisis, lawmakers had to be rushed out of the chambers as rioters broke in. Five people died, and 140 police officers were injured. It could have been much worse: the insurrectionists erected a gallows for Pence. Nonetheless, even after the insurrection, 147 Republicans voted against certification of the electoral votes.

Still, at first, many Republican lawmakers appeared to condemn the events of January 6. But they quickly came around to defending the Big Lie that Trump won the election. That lie is behind the voter suppression measures enacted by a slew of Republican-dominated states, as well as the new measures in Arizona and Georgia that enable legislatures to have control over election results.

In the House, the Republicans removed Liz Cheney from a leadership position for her criticism of Trump and rejection of the Big Lie, replacing her with a Trump loyalist, tying House Republicans as a group to the former president. Republicans in the Senate came together to kill a bill to create a bipartisan, independent committee to investigate the events of January 6. Lawmakers and pundits are downplaying the insurrection itself, claiming either that it was not a big deal or that Democrats are using it to suppress rightwing activism.

And now, of the 700 Republicans who have filed paperwork to run for Congress next year, at least a third of them have backed the idea that Trump won the 2020 election.

In American history, the attempt to overturn our election procedures for one man, based on a lie, is unprecedented.

My bad, I almost started reading.Then I saw Heathers name attached. No need to waste my time reading any further.

[ToastDunk]

July 6, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Jul 7

Six months ago today, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, intending to stop the counting of the certified ballots that would make Joseph R. Biden president and Kamala Harris vice president. This attack was unprecedented. It broke our nation’s long history of the peaceful transfer of power.

You know the story of that day. Former president Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, insisting that he had lost only because the election had been “stolen” from him, despite Biden’s decisive victory of more than 7 million votes and 74 electoral votes. He urged his supporters to stop Biden’s election from becoming official.

What has surprised me most in the six months since is how quickly the leaders of the Republican Party turned from establishing oligarchy—a process that the country has undergone in the past—to embracing authoritarianism, which it hasn’t.

Since 1986, Republican leaders have pushed policies that concentrate wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands. In 1986, they began to talk of “voter integrity” measures that would cull Black voters from the rolls; by 1994, after the Democrats passed the Motor Voter Act allowing voter registration at state offices like the Registry of Motor Vehicles, Republicans began to say they were losing elections only because of “voter fraud.” Suppressing the vote became part of the Republican strategy for winning.

But voter suppression has a long history in America. Especially in the 1850s and the 1890s, political parties concerned about losing power cut their opponents out of the vote.

After the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, Republican leaders accepted the support of talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, who created a narrative in which Democrats were dangerous socialists, out to destroy home and family. With the establishment of the Fox News Channel in 1996, that narrative, shared not by reporters but by personalities behind sets meant to look like newsrooms, skewed reality for FNC viewers.

But promoting a false narrative through media is not new to the United States. Elite enslavers in the 1840s and 1850s similarly shaped what information their neighbors could hear.

In 2000, Republicans put into office George W. Bush, who had lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. The election came down to the state of Florida, where more than 100,000 voters had recently been removed from the voter rolls. A recount there stopped after a riot encouraged by Roger Stone, and the Supreme Court then decided in favor of Bush.

In 2016, Trump, too, lost the popular vote, but the distribution of those votes enabled him to win in the Electoral College.

But installing a president who has lost the popular vote is not new, either. In 1877 and 1889, presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison both took office after losing the popular vote, Hayes by 250,000 votes, Harrison by more than 100,000.

In 2010, Republican leaders used Operation REDMAP (the Redistricting Majority Project) to win control of swing state legislatures and deliver the states to the Republicans by gerrymandering them. It worked. After the 2010 election, Republicans controlled the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other, smaller states, and they redrew congressional maps using precise computer models. In the 2012 election, Republicans received 1.4 million fewer votes for the House than Democrats did, but won a 33 seat majority.

Still, gerrymandering has been around for so long it’s named for early Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, whose name a journalist mixed with “salamander” in 1812.

Taken together, all these old tactics, amplified by modern technology, enabled the Republican leadership to lay the foundation for an oligarchy. Beginning in 1981, wealth began to move upward significantly, reversing the trend from 1933 to 1980, when wealth compressed. By 2017, lawmakers who had initially opposed Trump appeared to come around when he backed a huge corporate tax cut and put three originalists who endorsed the Republican vision of America on the Supreme Court.

Then Trump lost the 2020 election.

Before January 6, Republican lawmakers seemed to humor the outgoing president as he refused to accept the outcome. Trump and his people launched and lost more than 60 lawsuits over the election. They tried to pressure election officials in both Georgia and Arizona to change the outcome in those states. They refused to start the normal transition process that would enable Biden and Harris to set up their administration. And Republican lawmakers, trying to court Trump’s help in the Georgia Senate special runoff elections of January 5, kept their mouths shut.

And then January 6 happened. At a rally on Washington, D.C.’s Ellipse, Trump lied to his supporters again and again that the election had been stolen “by emboldened radical-left Democrats.” “We will never give up, we will never concede,” he told them. “You don't concede when there's theft involved.” He promised (falsely) that Vice President Mike Pence could send the ballots back to the states for recertification in his favor, “and we become president and you are the happiest people.”

“[W]e're going to have to fight much harder,” he said, “ecause you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated…. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

“So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

In the ensuing crisis, lawmakers had to be rushed out of the chambers as rioters broke in. Five people died, and 140 police officers were injured. It could have been much worse: the insurrectionists erected a gallows for Pence. Nonetheless, even after the insurrection, 147 Republicans voted against certification of the electoral votes.

Still, at first, many Republican lawmakers appeared to condemn the events of January 6. But they quickly came around to defending the Big Lie that Trump won the election. That lie is behind the voter suppression measures enacted by a slew of Republican-dominated states, as well as the new measures in Arizona and Georgia that enable legislatures to have control over election results.

In the House, the Republicans removed Liz Cheney from a leadership position for her criticism of Trump and rejection of the Big Lie, replacing her with a Trump loyalist, tying House Republicans as a group to the former president. Republicans in the Senate came together to kill a bill to create a bipartisan, independent committee to investigate the events of January 6. Lawmakers and pundits are downplaying the insurrection itself, claiming either that it was not a big deal or that Democrats are using it to suppress rightwing activism.

And now, of the 700 Republicans who have filed paperwork to run for Congress next year, at least a third of them have backed the idea that Trump won the 2020 election.

In American history, the attempt to overturn our election procedures for one man, based on a lie, is unprecedented.

Yep. Any questions?

[cradleandshoot]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

[ToastDunk]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

Okay Cradle, you don’t trust HCR to deliver the truth. But surely you can comment on the piece above. What in her account do you take issue with? Much of what she’s laying out is supported by video shot on Jan. 6th. Heck, I witnessed most of it on live TV. At least I think I did, was I being deceived?

[seacoaster]

Meanwhile, a relentless effort to remake and misinform their listeners in happening at FNC:

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1412594791754338309

"Faux insurrection"?

https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1412577701173633026

"Fake insurrection"?

Just a complete disgrace. At least Heather Cox Richardson isn't lying to her readers.

[seacoaster]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

I don't understand; exactly what do you find objectionable in the HCR piece posted by CU88? It is completely sound, heavy on facts of record and light on opinion. It's well written. What's your gripe? Or does the article not fit your preferred narrative?

[CU88]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

I don't understand; exactly what do you find objectionable in the HCR piece posted by CU88? It is completely sound, heavy on facts of record and light on opinion. It's well written. What's your gripe? Or does the article not fit your preferred narrative?

We know why...

[cradleandshoot]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

Okay Cradle, you don’t trust HCR to deliver the truth. But surely you can comment on the piece above. What in her account do you take issue with? Much of what she’s laying out is supported by video shot on Jan. 6th. Heck, I witnessed most of it on live TV. At least I think I did, was I being deceived?

Sorry but I don't trust HCR for unbiased and objective reporting. If she is writing an opinion piece then that is another story.

[cradleandshoot]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

I don't understand; exactly what do you find objectionable in the HCR piece posted by CU88? It is completely sound, heavy on facts of record and light on opinion. It's well written. What's your gripe? Or does the article not fit your preferred narrative?

We know why...

Sorry boys, I don't trust anything that HCR reports on.. you all trust her but I don't trust anybody that reports with an extreme FLP bias. If she floats your boat that is fine by me.

[seacoaster]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

I don't understand; exactly what do you find objectionable in the HCR piece posted by CU88? It is completely sound, heavy on facts of record and light on opinion. It's well written. What's your gripe? Or does the article not fit your preferred narrative?

We know why...

Sorry boys, I don't trust anything that HCR reports on.. you all trust her but I don't trust anybody that reports with an extreme FLP bias. If she floats your boat that is fine by me.

I don't want to burden you, but I am actually interested in what, exactly, in this piece you think is biased? Or is it simply that you will not, under any circumstances, read anything by HCR? Even I read Andrew McCarty man....

[cradleandshoot]

There are always questions, none of which will be answered by HCR.

I don't understand; exactly what do you find objectionable in the HCR piece posted by CU88? It is completely sound, heavy on facts of record and light on opinion. It's well written. What's your gripe? Or does the article not fit your preferred narrative?

We know why...

Sorry boys, I don't trust anything that HCR reports on.. you all trust her but I don't trust anybody that reports with an extreme FLP bias. If she floats your boat that is fine by me.

I don't want to burden you, but I am actually interested in what, exactly, in this piece you think is biased? Or is it simply that you will not, under any circumstances, read anything by HCR? Even I read Andrew McCarty man....

Nothing in this article in particular. I have read enough of the articles she has written to understand where she is coming from. You are better than me, I don't think I have ever read an article from Andrew McCarthy. Does anyone on this forum link to what he says? There are no shortages of articles on this forum from HCR.