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.
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.
