What to the Conscientious Conservative is January 6th?
IF the reputedly Jacksonian Donald Trump had charged “corrupt bargain” in mid-November 2020 and graciously (or even not so graciously) surrendered the office for the “good of the nation,” laying aside his objections to “voting irregularities, extralegal rules changes, and interference from social and legacy media,” then, today, he would likely hold a 60 percent approval rating and find himself on a glide path to an almost unprecedented election to a non-consecutive second term.
On the other hand, IF a bullfrog had wings, he would not bump his bottom when he hopped.
IF “ifs and buts” were candy and nuts, what a merry Christmas it would be.
However, bullfrogs don’t have wings, “if and buts” taste bitter instead of sweet, and, of course, the Real Donald Trump went the other way. In what resembled an emotional break with reality, Trump vehemently denied the truth, surrounded himself with a risibly demented and inept coterie of sycophants, and attempted an American version of the Beer Hall Putsch. Not surprisingly, the ill-conceived legal arguments and the haphazard attempt at mobocracy on the mall failed miserably. His unfettered narcissism dominated the mad genius of his unfathomable mind, overwhelming any traces of prudence, and, living out the poem he loved to read to us on the campaign trail in 2016, Trump’s reptile brain reigned supreme.
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”
Ask not why the scorpion stings; ask what you can do for the Donald.
Insurrection? Coup? Attack on our Democracy? Riot? Melee? Storming of the Capitol? Rampage? Brawl? Violent Protest? Civil Disobedience? Civil Unrest? Comedy? Tragedy? Fedsurrection?
What to make of the events of January 6, 2021? We seem deadlocked. We keep rehashing and reframing what we know without satisfaction. Perhaps we already know everything we need to know to believe what we believe. No investigation seems likely to change any minds in this moment of partisan consternation among activists and general indifference from a detached majority.
A few weeks ago the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol introduced Cassidy Hutchinson to the public kerfuffle. For a few days she was the most important person in the world whom we had never heard of the day before yesterday. She headlined yet another news cycle signaling a sea change in the seven-year saga of Donald J. Trump.
A multitude of tawdry and disturbing details continue to emerge from the ongoing inquiry, but nothing transformative has been presented. Even as the splashy chyrons and sober news anchors breathlessly suggest revelations of consequence, our first impressions remain fundamentally intact.
The most dedicated adherents on the anti-Trump left and right desperately desire our assent to their long-held belief that Trump represented an unadulterated evil for the nation. This conclusion not only secures our democracy, in their view, but, implicitly, perhaps unconsciously, it also equals vindication for their complete investment in total resistance from the beginning.
“Fox News must carry the hearings live because Fox viewers are exactly the people who need to hear it the most.” Ironically, the reverse could be said for our friends who enjoy CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, the Bulwark, ABC, NBC, and CBS: “the folks who evidently need the least convincing are surely the most obsessed with watching every minute of coverage.”
On the flipside, for the most relentless and committed of the Trump true-believers, every new revelation seems more fake news from unreliable purveyors of misinformation. The most dedicated followers remain intent on Making America Great Again, again, and they march on enthusiastically toward a 2024 restoration, happily humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Consternation Among the Cognoscenti: Why isn’t this breaking through?
I know an eighty-year-old woman in Waco, Texas. She ritually tunes in to the Bold and the Beautiful everyday during the noon hour. When the network preempts her show for the J6 hearings she fulminates at the talking heads on her TV. She finds the special interest programming more contrived and far less entertaining than the goings on at “Forrester Creations,” and she has nothing but contempt for the inferior melodrama.
She voted twice already for Donald Trump based on her vague but powerful sense that he favored more freedom and less government interference, secure borders, respect for the police, a common sense energy policy, and a shared regard for the American story she learned in public school during the 1950s. She is likely to vote for him again, if the alternative is Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg.
She knows everything she wants to know and remains unlikely to hear anything from Liz Cheney, Jamie Raskin, or Bennie Thompson that will change her mind.
What to the Conscientious Conservative is January 6th?
What We Know Already:
President Trump, in his inattention to his sacred oath to preserve and protect the Constitution, proved himself unworthy of the moment, and, by extension, unworthy of the office.
On the positive side of the ledger, Constitutional Government in the United States proved resilient under stress, and, thankfully, when the smoke cleared, patriots greatly outnumbered miscreants, and our flag is still there, waving defiantly over the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Upcoming federal elections will yield national leaders chosen by a democratic citizenry. Inextricably intertwined with the pettiness and vulgarity concomitant with the human pursuit of self interest, the complicated business of self government moves on.
In conclusion, as Ronald Reagan liked to say, “self government is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Happily, the American Project did not perish from the earth on January 6th, and, Lord willing, we will not squander it on our watch. Having said that, SERIOUSLY, let's be careful out there.
For the vast majority of Republican faithful (and the officeholders who serve them), January 6th offers a reminder that the Trump Experiment yielded mixed results. As the Supreme Court coughed up “winnings'' this past June like a slot machine stuck on jackpot, no honest conservative can gainsay the triumph of the Trump judiciary. While the Court tops the list, truth be told, the enumeration of other remarkable achievements runs long and significant. But January 6th reminds a candid conservative that all our myriad gains during the Trump Years came at a price. All those victories rested on the sandy political foundation of an unstable person unfit for the office. For those trying to reconcile policy victories with political recklessness, we would love to purge from our memory everything between Election Day and January 6th.
Moving forward, how do you consolidate the Trump gains? How might the party secure Trump-like wins without Trump? How do you disengage with Trump without jettisoning his coalition? How do you come to peace with Trump as unacceptable without indicting the entire Republican enterprise? It is clearly in the partisan interest of our opponents to forever discredit conservatism in their crusade to expose Trump and cleanse the public square of seditious traitors. But forever tarnishing Conservatism is not in the interest of the movement or the country.
In the end, we all know somehow that the idiosyncratic outrages of Donald J. Trump were never the cause of the dissension. Our opponents don’t hate Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett because they are Trump appointees (any more than they hate Thomas and Alito because they are Bush-41 and Bush-43 appointees). They hate Trump with white hot intensity mostly for the same reasons we tolerated him and sometimes chuckled affectionately at his antics: because he was a successful cutout for our policy goals. For just a moment, Trump created a space for unexpected conservative successes.
What to a Conscientious Conservative is January 6th? It is a black mark to be endured and outlived, and a reminder that winning cannot be the only thing. It is a cautionary exhortation to prudence and statesmanship. Having said that, January 6th must be a humbling experience but not a defining moment. We should be chastened but not paralyzed. We should be responsibly honest with ourselves but undaunted. Our mission to secure the blessings of liberty remains. Our charge going forward will be to incorporate the constructive elements of the Trump juggernaut, face and purge the unacceptable excesses, and strive on to continue the noble work we are in. Easier said than done–but let us begin.