If you want to understand Rush Limbaugh's poisonous impact on our politics, you couldn't ask for a better guide than @rickperlstein, the great historian of the New Right.
First, @rickperlstein notes that even back in the late 1980s, it was already clear that Limbaugh had a genius for making reactionary whites feel like they belonged to a movement, like they had a home:
@rickperlstein Importantly, @rickperlstein notes that the Limbaugh/Gingrich nationalization of scorched earth politics actually took *southern* politics national.
And Limbaugh's reactionary audience had affluent components, just like the 1/6 rioters:
@rickperlstein@AdamSerwer And finally, here @rickperlstein takes us straight from Rush Limbaugh to birtherism to Trump and QAnon and Marjorie Taylor Greene and the violent insurrection at the Capitol:
Texas is showing the future Republicans want: One in which they respond to large public challenges by retreating into their alternate information universe and insulating themselves from accountability with redoubled countermajoritarian tactics. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Unsurprisingly, Rep. Lauren Boebert succeeded in taking the phony anti-elite posturing to towering heights of stupidity.
And Rick Perry did a bang-up job exposing the utter bankruptcy of the conservative response to Texas as well:
Everyone is laughing at this GOP quote about Pat Toomey:
"We did not send him there to do the right thing. We sent him there to represent us."
But the idea that "representing" GOP voters means impunity for Trump is the mainstream GOP position. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
This is a bad development. It's becoming commonplace to hear Republicans claim that *representing GOP voters* requires maintaining fealty to the stolen-election myth and demands refraining from holding Trump accountable for inciting violent insurrection:
It's telling that Trump lickspittle Lindsey Graham says Lara Trump represents the "future of the GOP."
The future of the GOP belongs to those who maintain fealty to the alt-narrative of 2020, that Trump was the victim of a series of monstrous injustices:
Damning new facts show Trump may have known Pence's life was in danger when Trump attacked Pence during the insurrection. Democrats simply must call witnesses. If Trump knowingly pointed this loaded gun at Pence, we need to know the full story. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
I talked to a former Secret Service agent, who explained to me what Trump might have known about the danger Pence was in when Trump whipped up the mob against him.
This former agent says witnesses could help reconstruct what Trump knew and when:
Mark it down: Most elected Republicans will end up comprehensively absolving Trump of any and all responsibility for inspiring the attack. His role will be erased entirely. @LindseyGrahamSC's abject toadying on Fox shows where this is all going. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@LindseyGrahamSC News accounts keep claiming Dems have "failed to persuade" GOP senators to break with Trump. This framing is all wrong. It implies most Republicans have principled objections to the case against Trump. Everyone covering this trial knows that's nonsense:
@LindseyGrahamSC People have rightly ragged on Graham's "what did Pelosi know and when did she know it" idiocy.
But it's also worth noting that the underlying argument -- some preplanned Jan 6, and this exonerates Trump -- is also nonsense. These known facts demolish it:
Let's drop this bad framing which says GOP senators must choose whether to be "loyal" to Trump or not. Their choice is actually between being loyal to Trump and being faithful to their oath to defend the Constitution. Sorry: It can't be both. New piece: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Trump's lawyers will argue the Senate "lacks jurisdiction" to convict him, because he's no longer in office.
This is BS. But it also reveals how badly GOP senators want to avoid taking a stand on what Trump actually did, revealing their own dereliction: