Nicole Lafond has stolen a bit of my thunder here. But I feel obliged to let you know that Christian Ziegler, threesomer and erstwhile chairman of the Florida Republican Party, was finally given the boot today by the state party. The state party executive committee named Evan Power as his successor. No word was available as we went to press on whether Power and his wife will be inviting anyone else to play. I had explained in one of my earlier posts that the state party was in a jam because the state party bylaws provided no mechanism for firing a state party chairman. What happened? As near as I can tell the state party committee decided that that didn’t matter. They all wanted him to go. So they fired him. Bada bing bada boom.

Let me flag this piece to your attention. I’m not sure what to make of it yet. The gist is that one of Donald Trump’s codefendants in the state coup prosecution in Georgia has filed a motion to remove Fani Willis as prosecutor. Michael Roman claims that Willis hired a romantic partner (he alleges), Nathan Wade, to serve as special prosecutor in the case. In essence, she hired him as an outside lawyer since it’s a big case and something bigger than the office might normally handle. Roman then goes on to claim that since Willis and Wade vacationed together (he alleges) and since Wade paid for some of those vacations (he alleges), Willis illegally profited from Wade’s work for the DA’s office. He further argues that Willis had no authority to hire Wade in the first place; so basically the whole prosecution falls apart.

It’s become fashionable for some to say that we shouldn’t be hung up on January 6th, that it is, after all, time to move on. And it’s not just the Trump supporters who led the insurrection. The thinking is that it is a bit lazy somehow, holding on to the familiar. You’re stuck in some relevance-affirming cocoon. And it’s time to get outside. It’s an attitude that most especially prevalent among those who judge their seriousness about politics and the validity of their perspectives precisely in inverse proportion to their personal engagement and investment in the big questions of political life. Let’s call them the supercilious center. The attitude is pervasive among elite political reporters and editorialists.

In fact, January 6th remains at the center of our politics. It’s as important as it’s ever been. We often say that it’s not just what happened on January 6th but the criminal conduct leading up to it. That’s true, as far as it grows. But what’s more true is this: It’s not so much what happened on January 6th or even in the weeks leading up to it. What’s truly important is what came after January 6th.

I wanted to respond to a few questions and comments about my disqualification post. It’s a complicated issue that a number of you have raised. In so many words, I said that in the very unlikely case that the Court found that Trump had participated in an insurrection and allowed the Colorado decision to stand, it would still be up to individual states to remove him from the ballot. Clearly no red state is going to do that. And it seems unlikely that any purple states would do it.

TPM Reader BS writes: “I think you’re underestimating the impact of the (admittedly slight) possibility of SCOTUS affirming the removal of Trump from the Colorado ballot. However the majority phrases it, this will be seen and interpreted as the GOP-dominated SCOTUS, the highest court in the land, finding Trump GUILTY of insurrection.” (Don’t hold BS‘s initials against him.)

As BS goes on to argue, this would unleash a tidal wave of recriminations within the GOP and open the door to swing states removing Trump from the ballot.

I just saw that there’s a new ARG poll out this afternoon showing Donald Trump at 37% and Nikki Haley at 33% in New Hampshire. Christie is at 10% and Dead Bounce Ron is at 5%, if you’re a completist. This spurs me to share with you an editorial conversation we were just having about how we’re going to cover, how much of our editorial resources we’re going to put toward, the primaries in the next couple months. Can Haley beat Trump in New Hampshire? Do we care or does it matter if she does?

Just a quick note to let you know we’re off this week on the podcast. We’ll be back next week at the standard time.

Many have learned over the last three months how Hamas and the Israeli right, and especially Benjamin Netanyahu, have a paradoxically symbiotic relationship. Arch-enemies and yet dependent on each other. It’s occurred to me in recent days how many of Israel’s fiercest critics have a comparable relationship with the many far-right extremists who make up Netanyahu’s current and, one hopes, final government. From the start of Israel’s current campaign in Gaza, various members of the current coalition have opined or hoped that the carnage and destruction might be an opportunity to depopulate Gaza.

This kind of rhetoric comes in two basic forms. One is the simple fact that Gaza is a warzone with immense destruction. And civilians generally flee warzones. We saw it in Yugoslavia. In Syria. We see it in Ukraine. That’s what happens in wars and warzones. Civilians flee. But of course this history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict makes it totally different. So you have members of the Israeli far right saying, with perfect disingenuousness, why not let these poor people flee? It’s a humanitarian gesture. It’s helping them! Others barely even bother with this pretense of voluntary departure. It’s just an opportunity to get Gazans to leave.