Matthew Gertz Profile picture
Jan 11, 2021 10 tweets 2 min read Read on X
If Republican leaders are actually interested in "unity" rather than using its rhetoric to avoid accountability, here's something they could do. It doesn't involve much in the way of consequences, but it does feature truth-telling, apologies and requests for reconciliation.
To be clear, I don't think any of this would actually happen, but it would be nice (if insufficient) if it did.
Ronna McDaniel, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley could issue a joint statement and do a press conference in which they acknowledged that Joe Biden is president-elect and that he won a free and fair election by a sizable margin.
They could say that there is no evidence of meaningful election fraud and that judges, including ones appointed by Trump, have rejected much of what the president and his allies have been complaining about.
They could apologize for misleading their supporters over the past months and say that they understand why Democrats may think their claims fueled last week's violence and are horrified if that is the case.
They could denounce Trump's behavior on Wednesday as inappropriate and inflammatory and pledge support for a full investigation into what happened.
They could acknowledge that Democrats are being reasonable in seeking Trump's removal, even as they believe that it isn't a good idea because it risks more violence from his supporters.
They could pledge to turn down the temperature in their rhetoric, admitting that the GOP's election messaging has too often stressed that Democratic victories would lead to physical danger for its voters and the destruction of the republic.
They could ask for forgiveness from their colleagues for putting their lives in danger, their supporters for lying to them, and the country for having failed to be honest in the first place.
Again, I don't think any of this will happen, but it would be a tangible effort by Republican leaders to promote unity. Right now, we're getting a lot of this:

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More from @MattGertz

Oct 30
Not going to bother to find out what he said in order to express regrets to Puerto Ricans that it happened, fascinating stuff!
Takeaway from the truck stunt is Trump won’t say anything bad about the supporter who spoke at his rally and called PR garbage, and indeed doesn’t seem able to even denounce the comment.
He’s just giving those influential Puerto Ricans who have been expressing outrage about the comments all week new material to post about, insane self-own.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 30
Trumpy billionaires are hoping to ride a wave of grievance into power, then use it to cut their own taxes and demolish their competitors. Image
In exchange for his support, Trump is offering Elon Musk the power to, in Musk's own telling, destroy Tesla's domestic competitors. Image
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The result would reverse the domestic manufacturing renaissance spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act, eliminating good jobs in Republican parts of the country. Image
Read 4 tweets
Oct 25
It is depressing but somehow not surprising that 11 days before an election that the NY Times’ publisher and top editor warn could destroy the U.S. free press, the paper is spending time taking down good-faith critics (me) who argue its content doesn’t meet that moment. Image
Let’s go through this from top to bottom. semafor.com/article/10/24/…
The Semafor write-up doesn’t include the relevant Times data and its characterization of our findings is much broader than what we actually wrote.

Here’s the study, let me explain what we actually did and reported. mediamatters.org/new-york-times…
Read 10 tweets
Oct 16
Fox's women voters town hall is very obviously packed with Donald Trump supporters, opens with a standing cheering ovation for him.
The first question at the Fox town hall went to a Lisa who looks a lot like Lisa Cauley, president of the Fulton County Republican Women -- even the necklace matches. fultonrepublicanwomen.com/team/lisa-caul…Image
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This is a Trump campaign event with an audience of his supporters and a moderator who is doing everything possible to help him out, which makes sense since Fox News is a Republican propaganda outlet.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 10
The blue bars are articles mentioning Hillary Clinton's email server in the week after the Oct. 2016 Comey letter.

The red bars are articles mentioning Trump's Jan. 6 indictment the week after Jack Smith's latest filing was unsealed earlier this month. Image
Major papers are giving Trump’s Jan. 6 indictment dramatically less attention than they did Clinton’s server mediamatters.org/new-york-times…
We found the papers ran 26 combined articles mentioning Trump’s indictment in the week after the unsealing of Smith’s filing. But those same papers published 100 combined articles — nearly 4 times as many — that mentioned Clinton’s server in the week after Comey's letter. Image
Read 6 tweets
Sep 19
How things are going right now on the websites of the largest news outlets in North Carolina after CNN broke its story about Mark Robinson's "dozens of disturbing comments on porn forum" -- a thread.
Raleigh's The News & Observer. Image
The Charlotte Observer Image
Read 13 tweets

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