One thing that was clear to me when I read about Trump’s comments on the January 6th defendants and the death of Ashli Babbitt is that he intends to make these claims and demands centerpieces of the 2022 midterm election. For Trump everything is the Big Lie, everything is the “rigged election”, which is to say everything is payback, retribution and grievance about being driven from power.
The insurrectionists are the symbols of grievance, the symbols of absolute loyalty to Trump and the angry and aggrieved victims who are at the center of every Trump political demand, every argument. They are inseparable from the Big Lie because they are the ones who fought hardest to vindicate Trump’s claims. They are the new version of the brawny but tearful factory workers calling Trump “Sir” and asking for justice. They are, in a word, the new mascots of Trumpism.
As we noted yesterday, the conventional GOP, while all publicly loyal to Trump, wants to ignore and coverup January 6th as much as possible. They have a conventional culture war and big government campaign they are eager to run. Meanwhile Speaker Nancy Pelosi has finally created her select investigative committee to investigate January 6th. She has designed it to really investigate. Democrats have both profound civic and patriotic reasons to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6th as well as obvious political interests.
The investigation commences now. It will get down to work properly toward the end of the summer. It will need to be prepared to conclude by the end of 2022 for the simple reason that if the Democrats lose power in the House – more likely than not – it will be brought to a speedy conclusion. All of which tells us that the January 6th investigation is more or less coterminous in time with the 2022 election cycle. And this confirms that the two efforts – Trump’s and the select committee’s – are on a common trajectory and certain to collide.
