Kellyanne Conway is still around! On Wednesday, she appeared on Fox News like the Swamp Ghost of Christmas Past to run some interference for her former boss and historical embarrassment Donald Trump.
I just think the Democrats wake up every morning, Emily, and they look at the calendar, the iPhone says Jan. 6, 2021—the date never changes. And then they get in the electric vehicle and go get an abortion. I just described the Democratic Party to you in 7 seconds.
(You can insert your own cricket sounds here.)
This is what Conway is good at: summing up the Republican Party line of cynicism and misinformation in short, sophomoric statements. Yes, Kellyanne, when will this plurality of voters get over Trump’s (and his friends’) attempted coup d’état?
It wasn’t long after Jan. 6, 2021, that MAGA Republicans began whitewashing the history of that day. Before long, Republican lawmakers were attempting to characterize the violence and upheaval that was captured on hundreds of hours of video as a “normal tourist visit.”
In recent weeks, we’ve seen Sen. Mike Lee stoking the embers of conspiracy that the “tourist visit” was also a riot but the riot part was perpetrated by secret FBI forces. As we approach the third anniversary of Trump’s attempt to overthrow an election, we have people like Conway calling it no big deal and Sen. Ron Johnson lying and saying that Democratic politicians have done it “repeatedly” throughout American history.
The fact that there have been more than 1,000 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack—with people still being arrested as the Department of Justice works its way through copious video and testimony—is all white (militia) noise to the MAGA propaganda machine. But it isn’t simply craven greed and a hunger for power that makes so many Republican operatives willing to sign on to such a pathologically perverse view of history. Just consider how many prominent Republicans are suspected of being complicit in the day’s events.
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney recently reminded an audience at the University of Minnesota that Rep. Jim Jordan has yet to answer some very serious questions about his role in the attack. The same can be said for Sen. Johnson. Even more recently, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania was exposed as having texted a lot with those attempting to change the 2020 election results.
Conway’s glib way of talking about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, is just self-defense for the whole MAGA ecosystem.
It’s our last episode of the year and we wanted to talk about what we are thankful for. It turns out that Republican disarray and ineptitude topped our list. Join us to count the ways!
