Republicans Respond to January 6 Hearings by kissing the (T)Rump

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The opening session of the January 6 hearings was narrowly tailored to the tastes of the theoretically persuadable Trump supporter. The argument laid out by the committee did not question the long-standing conservative obsession with pervasive voter fraud that underpinned Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results. Chairman Bennie Thompson even conceded his right to launch a series of absurd legal challenges to the results. Instead it focused narrowly on the element of Trump’s autogolpe that is most difficult for the right to swallow: his last-gasp bid to use a violent mob to pressure Mike Pence and Congress to overturn the results.

The committee’s implicit request was that conservative Republicans who may have voted for Trump at least denounce the most heinous final stage of his coup, when the president was refusing to call in any defense of the besieged Capitol and telling his aides that Mike Pence deserved to be lynched. Their response arrived in real time: They do not believe Trump or his minions should be held accountable.

Fox News, of course, gave the hearings a giant middle finger. It shunted the hearings onto Fox Business and its streaming service, instead using its platform to give Tucker Carlson a commercial-free hour to spew various conspiracy theories. Carlson repeated his debunked false-flag charges, questioned the results of the election, and respectfully hosted flamboyant racist Darren Beattie, who had spent January 6 directing various Black people on Twitter to take a knee to Trump and learn their “proper role in our society.”

Link to tweet

Most of the party messaging apparatus simply dismissed the hearings as dull. The Federalist termed them a “show trial,” using an elaborate comparison to the Stalin-era proceedings in which officials were tortured into supplying ludicrously false confessions.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-respond-to-january-6-hearings-by-defending-trump/ar-AAYjfcI

[TheRealNorth]

1. They really aren't hiding the white supremacy anymore.

[underpants]

2. Kneel and learn their place

Got it.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[crickets]

6. Hmm. Didn't remember him offhand, made a quick search...

https://heavy.com/news/2018/08/darren-beattie/
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-ally-darren-beattie-forced-121412079.html

Ew.

[Scrivener7]

4. That's IT! I couldn't quite put my finger on why I thought that presentation last

night was so genius, but that's it: "The opening session of the January 6 hearings was narrowly tailored to the tastes of the theoretically persuadable Trump supporter."

It didn't try to be all things to all people. It reminded those of us who live in reality of what happened. It showed us some new things. It took the record of the coup and presented it all together in a cohesive form that will forever be available and that will forever prevent misinformation about that day to be spouted uncontested.

But it only tried to CONVINCE a VERY specific kind of person: the persuadable republiQan who has not had enough information and who does not understand what really happened. And it made an ironclad case. No opinion. Video of people speaking their own words. Video of actual events.

Genius.

[gratuitous]

5. An old story about a guy on trial for murder

All the evidence points to the defendant and the prosecution has laid out a very good case. The defense attorney, knowing he's in trouble, concocts a real barn-burner of a closing argument. He disputes all the evidence, discounts all the testimony, and then plays his trump card: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will now tell you who the real killer is. In fact, I've arranged to have him come to the courthouse today. He will walk through the courtroom doors in 10 seconds!" Pausing for the drama, all eyes are on the courtroom door. Ten seconds pass, but nobody comes in. The attorney picks up: "You see? All of you looked toward the door! That means you have a reasonable doubt as to my client's guilt. You all looked at the door, didn't you, because you have doubts about the state's case."

One of the jurors pipes up and says, "Excuse me, Mr. Defense Attorney. I didn't look toward the courtroom door. I looked at your client, and he just sat there at the defense table facing forward. He knew nobody was coming in those doors. That's enough for me."

The Republicans don't have to watch the hearings; they already know how guilty they are.

[StarryNite]

7. Exactly!