Let's be clear: For the far-right groups that carried out Trump's insurrection, the siege of the Capitol was a huge success, a major propaganda coup. I talked to experts in right-wing extremism about what this event really meant to them. Alarming stuff: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
"By all measurable effects, this was for far right extremists one of the most successful attacks they’ve ever launched. This will be propagandized on for the next decade."
I talked to folks tracking how the insurrection is playing on the far right:
The multiple security failures at the Capitol are already being treated as a propaganda victory by some on the far right, who see this as a sign of corruption and vulnerability:
@drvolts Relatedly, see this important new reporting on the epic intelligence and law enforcement failures that allowed the siege of the Capitol to get out of control:
@drvolts Right from @brianbeutler: The instinct among some Dems to turn the page from the insurrection could help establish precedent that Repubs can seek to overturn elections with impunity.
As noted above, this is exactly how the far right sees the mob assault.
@drvolts@brianbeutler For far right groups, the storming of the Capitol was a huge, resounding propaganda victory. Here's how they see it, with help from @jaredlholt, who's been tracking the online planning of the insurrection for months:
Conor Lamb's powerful rebuke of the Sedition Caucus stands as an important statement about this dangerous moment. He laid bare an essential truth: The core ethos of this movement is that it does not feel bound by *legitimate* electoral outcomes. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Here's my best effort to describe the true nature of the ethos of bad faith driving Trump and his insurrectionists:
The spin from McConnell and his allies is Trump's focus on stealing the election helped cost them the Georgia runoffs. It's nonsense. Republicans did all they could to exploit everything he unleashed among his voters. Don't let them memory-hole any of it: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The spin from McConnell and his allies is that Trump's conspiracy theories and grievances about the election cost them in the suburbs.
But McConnell and Republicans spent weeks feeding GOP base voter delusions on this front, for purely cynical purposes:
This keeps getting lost in euphemism. But Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are waging full-scale war *on their own state's voters.* If they win, this will be validated as just another tool of political mobilization. That's awful to contemplate. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Stop saying Republicans are "cowards."
Stop saying they are humoring Trump.
Stop saying Trump voters have trapped them in a difficult situation.
The reality is that Republicans are manipulating their voters in a show of extraordinary contempt for them:
@paulkrugman In this case, the inaction was in part rooted in a specific iteration of malevolence, the belief (which turned out to be wrong) that only parts of the country that opposed Trump would seriously suffer and die. Trump mused openly about protecting Florida from NY, NJ and CT. 2/
@paulkrugman The idea that virtuous Real America needed to be protected from depraved, diseased Blue America, has long been a hallmark of Trumpism. He attacked urban districts as rodent infested. He mused to Florida's governor that he'd wall off the virus. 3/
No one should ever listen to this fraud again when he claims to speak for the "great American middle." He won't acknowledge the preference of a majority of American voters! Those who play footsie with his "conservative populism" should admit to its genuine authoritarian side.
That Hawley is joining Trump's effort to overturn millions of votes is a bad sign. It suggests the 2024 hopefuls who see themselves as Trumpism's heirs will continue to stress the mythology that the election was stolen from him. I gamed that out here:
Cheerleaders for people like Hawley insist the 2020 results show that "conservative populism" has potential for genuine majoritarian appeal. They must be deeply disappointed that one of its leading champions wants to overturn millions of votes, right?