I’ve struggled a bit with the vocabulary here. “Analog” doesn’t quite capture it. But it’s close. A couple decades ago I might have used the word “meme”. But with the rise of the Internet that word has now taken on a very particular meaning which is distinct from what I’m talking about. For me, and I suspect for you, there are certain movies – perhaps also TV shows or novels – which contain certain iconic or resonant moments that not only stick with us but then provide analogs which shape our understanding of real life moments. They also allow us to communicate our perceptions of those moments to others through this visual or analogic shorthand.
There’s a lot going on in that sentence so let me provide an example. For me one of those movies is The Godfather (really the whole trilogy). There’s Michael telling Sen. Geary his offer is “nothing.” There’s Vito Corleone dressing down the undertaker Amerigo Bonasera and then accepting his offer of “friendship.” Particularly Godfather I and II have countless exchanges and plot twists like this. They are mostly about the economy of power and how it interacts with friendship and loyalty.
Good breakdown here of how the Ashli Babbitt martyr narrative migrated from neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites to far right members of Congress and finally to Trump’s mouth.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is now live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss where things stand on the six-month anniversary of the January 6 insurrection.
Watch below and email us your theme song submissions and questions for next week’s episode.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
When did Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football become a staple of political speech and analogies? Kate Riga dug into the story.
They just don’t want to admit it.
It’s not as if you couldn’t speculate — we now know House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) blamed Trump for the insurrection the night it happened, only to crawl back to Trump’s side for the midterms. Several other prominent Republican leaders have taken similar about-face paths since January.
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We’ve been noting how not only the Big Lie but also the January 6th insurrection are likely to be at the center of the 2022 midterm election campaign, in large part because Donald Trump is insisting that it be so. As leader of the Republican party he can do that. Except for a two or three day period after the insurrection itself, Republicans have wanted to move on from, cover up or simply ignore what happened on January 6th. We’ve seen this in the almost unanimous resistance to impeaching and convicting the President over the event itself and resistance to any subsequent commissions or investigative committees. But as Trump moves back into public campaign mode, as I’ve noted, he’s pressing for much more: vindication and freedom for the insurrectionists and valorization of the purported ‘martyr’ Ashli Babbitt. We got a clear indication this morning of how some of the most eager candidates are falling into line.
I want to make sure you see this piece by Josh Kovensky on the precise details of the moments that led up to Ashli Babbitt’s death. We’ve discussed and most of us know the general story. But the details are key. One notable point is that Babbitt’s death was a turning point, not just in retrospect but in the moment as well. It basically took the wind out of many or most of the insurrectionists.
From TPM Reader JB …
Nothing from the Wisconsin Republican delegation to Congress as yet on Ashli Babbitt or interfering with prosecution of January 6 insurrectionists. Sen. Ron Johnson’s Twitter account today, for example, rails about “the border,” health issues following Covid19 vaccinations, and climate change extremists.
I get that sense that the official Republican party, most of the press and perhaps even Democrats in Washington, DC have not gotten the message that Trump is sending. But let’s start with the Republicans. I don’t get the sense it’s registering with them that Trump is going to make the insurrection central to the 2022 campaign, at least for his role in it. He’s telling us. The Big Lie is everything for Trump and the insurrectionists are the warriors and victims of the ‘rigged election’. The two are inseparable.
In his press conference today, President Trump returned to his claims that Ashli Babbitt was shot for “no reason.” He also demanded the name of the Capitol Hill police officer who shot her and the release of insurrectionists currently in jail or charged with crimes. The comments came in response to a question at a press conference announcing Trump’s lawsuits against social media platforms.
Video after the jump …