Opinion

Donald Trump has let pass a 10 AM deadline from the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, issued via a lawful subpoena ordering him to submit documents. But what he appears to have planned next is what could be seen as thumbing his nose at the Select Committee – and as an insult to, if not an attack on the rule of law.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell noted the missed deadline, but adds, “Trump and the committee has been viewing the deadline to be Friday in general, per sources familiar.”

If you had told me a year ago that polls would showing Democrats and Republicans within the margin of error a few days before this midterm election, I would have said you were nuts. After a couple of off-year wins for Republicans that had the Beltway press corps giddy with excitement, conventional wisdom held that a "red wave" was building, and likely to become a "red tsunami." Even sober-minded analysts saw the political environment offering at least a comfortable win for Republicans in 2022.

All the fundamentals pointed toward a rout for the Democrats. The president was tremendously unpopular, gas prices were soaring and the relentless coverage of various failed Senate votes, thanks to a couple of Democratic Senate divas, had the administration's policy agenda circling the drain. Some prognosticators said the Republicans were on track to gain 35 seats or more in the House and very likely a solid majority in the Senate.

The Arizona Republican Party's nominee for governor, Kari Lake, is telling supporters there's no reason for schools to spend so much time teaching science, math, and history. If elected she would recreate public schools into factories producing young adults who can immediately enter the workforce without the benefit of understanding basic information necessary in a democratic society. In North Carolina, the dominionist Lt. Governor wants to ban the teaching of science and history in elementary schools. And a Fox News host this week claimed that social studies – classes that teach history, culture, geography, political science, philosophy, and psychology – is a fake subject, "made up by progressives."

That Fox News host is Pete Hegseth, who Donald Trump, when he was president, wanted to nominate to head the Veterans Administration. Hegseth may be best-known, however, for once bragging on Fox News that he hadn't washed his hands in over a decade.

For most Americans, January 6, 2021, was a harrowing day, as a mob ransacked the Capitol, looking for politicians to terrorize or even kill in revenge for their unwillingness to steal the presidency for Donald Trump. For the Oath Keepers, however, the saddest part of the day is how quickly it ended. The right wing militia had been planning the insurrection for months, but when the day itself came, their hopes for political assassinations and the overthrow of democracy were largely dashed. Trump never showed up, as promised, to lead the mob to victory. The politicians targeted managed to escape. Eventually, it became clear the insurrection had failed, and Trump finally, with great reluctance, told the mob to go home.

But, as revealed in the seditious conspiracy trial for five Oath Keepers on Monday, they weren't quite ready to throw in the towel. "You ain't seen nothing yet," Stewart Rhodes, the militia's founder, texted in a group chat.

The Voting Rights Act is on the ballot in Wisconsin this November 8. And what happens in Wisconsin may not stay in Wisconsin.

At the beginning of 2010, Wisconsin was a blue-leaning state. Democrats controlled the governor’s mansion, the legislature, both Senate seats, a majority of House seats, and had won the state’s 10 electoral votes six times in a row. Barack Obama beat John McCain by 14 points in 2008.

There are ever so many ways Republicans can admit they were delighted by the attempted assassination of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which resulted in severe injuries to her husband, who had the misfortune of being home when apparent right-wing nut David DePape broke into the couple's San Francisco home. They can pretend to condemn the attack while promoting conspiracy theories denying that it was right-wing political violence, as did Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk. They can make jokes about it in public appearances, the classy path pioneered by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. They can do both at the same time, as Donald Trump Jr. did. They can share vicious memes mocking the victim, as a Facebook page did that is evidently owned by Pennsylania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. Or they can deflect blame by casting the villains as the victims, as Tucker Carlson did in a Fox News segment equating criticism of hate speech with censorship.

OK, it's true that so far no Republican leaders (to my knowledge) have directly congratulated the would-be assassin for his attempt on Pelosi's life, or openly expressed regret that he didn't succeed. Establishing plausible deniability is still a priority within the GOP ranks, although to a diminishing extent. But make no mistake: Any effort to minimize the violence or deflect blame for the attack on Pelosi or her husband is a tacit endorsement. It's certainly received that way by the Republican base, which has spent the past two years, ever since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, ramping themselves up to support a fascist — and therefore inherently violent — campaign to seize power against the will of a clear majority.