Once an albatross around Trump’s neck, Jan. 6 is now taboo in the GOP primary
“The calculation was that this is clearly indefensible, he’s not going to have a place in the party going forward,” said one Republican strategist and former congressional aide. “That clearly hasn’t happened … January 6th is advantageous for Trump in a Republican primary now. Nobody’s going to hit him on January 6th.”
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Like most politicians considering a White House run, Ron DeSantis published a new book this past week, designed to frame him as an unapologetic truth teller, eager to tackle the hard issues of the day.
But as the work came under scrutiny, reviewers pointed out something missing. The Florida Governor had nothing to say about one of the most consequential political moments of the past few years: the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
They shouldn’t have been surprised.
If any subject is verboten in the early stages of the Republican presidential primary, it’s the insurrection that once served as a defining point in 2024 frontrunner Donald Trump’s career. Whereas Republicans once talked openly about it being disqualifying for the former president, today it is little more than a litmus test in GOP circles of a candidate’s MAGA bona fides. None of them want any part of it.
For a primary candidate, said Scott Walker, the former Republican governor of Wisconsin, going after Trump for Jan. 6 is “a huge risk.”
The Jan. 6 avoidance is not just in DeSantis’ book. Mike Pence, the former vice president and likely presidential candidate, is preparing to resist a grand jury subpoena for testimony about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, seeing only political landmines in testifying. Nikki Haley, asked on a podcast recently if she would describe the riot at the Capitol as an “insurrection, a riot, or a coup,” went instead with a more banal — and safer — description: “a sad day in America.”
In the primary, said Dave Carney, a national Republican strategist based in New Hampshire, “I don’t think January 6th will come up, period.”
The insurrection wasn’t always destined to be taboo in GOP primary politics. In the immediate aftermath, the riot appeared to provide an opening not only for Trump’s loudest critics in the party, but also for more mainstream, otherwise-Trumpian Republicans seeking to distinguish themselves from him ahead of 2024.
It was Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, whoonce said she was angry and “disgusted” with Trump and told Republican National Committee members that his “actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.” Pence made his first post-presidential break with Trump by declaring that he and Trump might never “see eye to eye” on the insurrection. DeSantis once openly criticized “the rioting and disorder” at the Capitol.
“The calculation was that this is clearly indefensible, he’s not going to have a place in the party going forward,” said one Republican strategist and former congressional aide. “That clearly hasn’t happened … January 6th is advantageous for Trump in a Republican primary now. Nobody’s going to hit him on January 6th.”
The advantages for Trump, if they do exist, were in plain view at the gathering of conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference. At the yearly confab — held this year outside of Washington — some attendees wore their connection to Jan. 6 as a badge of honor and found sympathetic ears.
Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt — the protester shot and killed by Capital police at the riot as she tried to break down a door inside the building — appeared on set with Donald Trump Jr. outside the convention’s main stage. There were two booths in the CPAC exhibition hall focused on Jan. 6 defendants. And it was standing room only for a breakout session at the conference titled: “True Stories of January 6: The Prosecuted Speak.” Speakers included Jan. 6 defendants Brandon Straka, Simone Gold, West Virginia legislator Derrick Evans, John Strand and Geri Perna, the aunt of Matthew Perna, who died by suicide after pleading guilty to four charges related to the Capitol riot.
In the halls, it wasn’t unusual to bump into people who were protesting on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. Deborah Gordon, a retiree from Maryland, said it was “disgusting” that politicians didn’t talk about Jan. 6 more. “I was there,” Gordon said. Bruce Cherry, the chair of Seminole County Republican executive committee in Florida, said it was important to reelect Trump “to pardon those people.” Melissa Cornwell, who attended CPAC from Beaumont, Texas, called Jan. 6 a “non-event,” adding that the “real insurrection” was the riots that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020.
If anything, the tone and tenor of the conference suggested that Republican presidential candidates may feel pressure from corners of the base to talk about Jan. 6 in positive terms — and rally to the defense of people arrested following the riot.
“I can tell you that just interacting with a lot of the activists here, there is concern that the violations of protocol and civil rights around the Jan. 6 issue haven’t gotten sufficient attention from the Congress, and that’s really a matter for us in the House majority more so than 2024 candidates,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on the sidelines of CPAC.
Already, the Trump world attacks on potential 2024 contenders for not being sufficiently supportive of the Jan. 6 protesters are coming. Alex Bruesewitz, a Republican strategist and influencer close to the Trumps, said others who could seek the nomination have shown they “don’t care” about Jan. 6 defendants “because they’re going to lose out on the Wall Street money, they hate Trump and his base.” Bruesewitz himself was summoned by the Jan. 6 committee but reportedly pleaded the Fifth when asked to testify about the events on that day. He once said he would help pay for the legal defense of accused Capitol rioters, while Trump has suggested pardoning some Jan. 6 defendants and even collaborated on a song with some of them.
CPAC has grown increasingly aligned with Trump, making it difficult to assess how representative its gathering is of broader Republican politics. Indeed, last August, the conference featured a fake jail cell where a convicted Capitol rioter sat, fake cried, and prayed with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Still, the crowd assembled there was full of precisely the kind of hardline activists critical to presidential contenders in a GOP primary.
In the broader GOP ecosystem, even more moderate Republicans see little upside in mentioning the riot.
“I’m not trying to downplay January 6th and how terrible it was, but really, a lot of us just want to move past this guy, right?” said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who worked on George W. Bush's 2004 campaign. “We want to move past him, and move past the awfulness, which culminated on January 6th. That was the peak of Trump awfulness.”
But Graul added that anyone running to be the GOP standard-bearer understood the calculations that come with it.
“We’re still in this stage where if you’re running for the Republican nomination, you’re going to need to get votes from people who voted for Donald Trump,” he said.
Indeed, polls show that there just isn’t much of a constituency in the GOP primary for anyone criticizing Trump on Jan. 6. More than two years after the riot, the share of Republicans who disapprove of Trump supporters taking over the Capitol building has fallen to 49 percent, from 74 percent in 2021, according to arecent Economist/YouGov poll. And even if Republicans didn’t like what they saw that day, a majority of them don’t blame Trump.
Two years ago, Walker said, Jan. 6 was worthy of condemnation. He said so at the time. But it makes no sense for presidential candidates to be talking about it now, he added, when most people have moved on.
Anymore, he said, “Nobody cares.”
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America is becoming a dystopia. Oh wait, I mean idiocracy. Or both.
Maybe a hyperbolica.
You believe that Trumps attempt to ovethrow the government on Jan 6th was "hyperbole"?
Half of Republicans now say that they dont really object to the invasion of the Capitol building.
The traitor level is rising.
No, I think that was despicable.
They have felt the scorn and disdain of liberal elites who have no empathy for rural and the working class.
And Republicans have empathy for the working class? LOL.
How about if the next time the Republicans in power vote tax cuts for billionaires and allow corporations to call the tune on health and safety regulations the "left" invades the Capitol, bashes in doors and windows and tries to enter the congressional chambers during the vote? And then 50% of Democrats say they have no problem with it . How would that go over? "Those dirty commies" sounds like the reaction doesnt it?
The fact you still believe Trump tried to overthrow the government on Jan 6th screams "hyperbole".
Maybe if Democrats and the left would concentrate more on the Human Fuck Up Machine they put in the Oval Office; and correcting everything they have fucked up over the last two years; then Trump would become a non issue.
It's called "a conspiracy theory!"
Vic, what you seem to know about Jan 6 could be written on the back of a matchbook.
You're going to get a lot of matchbooks tonight when Tucker Carlson walks you through the newly released videos.
Is there a laugh track?
Oh, by the way, Carlson is a known and proven liar.
Everybody is a crook and a liar...Everybody except that ridiculous piece of shit in the White House / S
That number will steadily drop as the general election approaches. A small number of desperate leftists keep milking the J6 event for all it's political worth. Th
Thankfully, most rational, sane, and normal Americans have moved on.
It's simply not an issue with most Republicans, especially the voters, like myself.
Exactly.
It's been an idiocracy for a while now.
Of course he did, the evidence is overwhelming. We have gone over this a hundred times and Im getting tired.
On the morning of Jan 6th , at his rally at the Ellipse, Trump was STILL saying that if Pence would play ball that day he could keep the presidency. One of the "plans" Trump approved was for Pence to throw out the electoral votes of seven swing states under the ruse that they were "contested" (they were not), and declare with a new electoral count that Trump was the winner. THAT is exactly what Trump wanted to happen on Jan 6.
He is a traitor and those who support him are on their way to being traitors too.
Oh John, get over it. Let it go. What happened back then is now irrelevant compared to todays concerns.
There are bigger issues at stake here...the biggest of which is getting rid of Democrats before they totally destroy our country.
As stated in the article...."Nobody cares".
You know, some people have facts and arguments and the ability to convey them, and then there are people like you who spout slogans.
Meh.
Tell me everything you know about the Eastman memo. I'll wait.
I don't care what anyone said...it's over.
In other words you know absolutely nothing about it.
Personal attacks will, as usual, get you nowhere. And you have serious problems in communicating.
I wonder if Republicans would be "Over it" if it had been BLM and ANTIFA along with other left wing extremists who attacked the capital on January 6th attempting to stop the certification of Trump as President for a second term.
Oh wait6, I guess I don't really wonder as anyone with more than half a brain knows Republicans would never "get over it". If that crowd had been Democrats using the EXACT same actions chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" Republicans would still be using January 6th as a cudgel to beat Democrats into political submission after demanding the violent insurrectionists be treated as traitors and domestic terrorists. They would still be airing the worst most violent moments on 24/7 repeat on Fox News even two years later and use them in every Republicans election campaign.
Do any Republicans actually think otherwise? What some apparently need to "get over" is that this is politics and it doesn't fucking matter what you believe or how you feel about January 6th, whichever side thinks they can play it to their advantage will.
Democrats would be calling them "peaceful protesters".
Doubtful. Only completely deluded morons would call what we all witnessed that day a peaceful "tour of the Capital" as some Republicans have done. I'm not saying there aren't any completely deluded morons on the far left, I'm sure there are, but they are clearly not part of the mainstream left as they are on the right. Even here we have those who believe themselves just right of center downplaying, dismissing and wanting to just "get over" their own parties participation in a clearly violent illegal attack on our country, our constitution and our Republic.
Their history suggests otherwise.
No, but the mainstream excuses their behavior with incredibly predictable regularity and aggression.
And that's why you're never going to get any traction generating outrage over Jan 6.
Mainstream Democrats excused and defended and even participated in "peaceful protests" that caused billion of dollars in damage, destroyed livelihoods, burned buildings to the ground, included the attempted murder of civilian government workers and ultimately included an attempted secession from the United States.
So January 6 rolls around and NOW they care about rioting? Just stop.
The MAGA GOP can't throw the yoke of 'the Trump' over the side of the ship with four torpedos coming straight at it. He is all they got. And more importantly, or hilariously, is all they deserve.
Will not use the term albatross as I do not wish to disparage the species.