Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Let’s finish the job.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Let there be snark.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / A Bit of Historical Perspective On the Responses By Republicans In Congress To FBI Director Wray’s Testimony On the 6th January Insurrection

A Bit of Historical Perspective On the Responses By Republicans In Congress To FBI Director Wray’s Testimony On the 6th January Insurrection

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FBI Director Christopher Wray testified today before Congress on the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, what the FBI did in advance of it, and what it has been doing since then. You can find a synopsis of his testimony at The Associated Press. During the question and answer portions of his appearance today, the usual Republican suspects decided to continue to muddy the water, make the clear confusing, change the subject, push the now branded big lie that the presidential election was stolen, and blamed the insurrection on leftist extremists instead of the actual perpetrators on the extreme right, which I would call the other big lie. Senator Grassley (R-IA), long known as the most experienced county commissioner to serve in the US Senate, provides a great example of the lies and falsehoods:

I’d like to say that what the Republicans participating in the hearing did today was something new and unusual, but I can’t. I’ve been studying domestic and foreign extremism, terrorism, and low intensity warfare and political violence since I was doing my first masters in 1994. As far back as I can remember some Republican members of Congress have been doing this exact thing whenever a major domestic terrorist attack is perpetrated by someone on the extreme right. In the early 1990s two Republican members of the House of Representatives ran point on this. Helen Chenoweth-Hage and Larry Craig of Idaho. Craig latter would eventually take his show to the Senate after 18 years in the House. Chenoweth-Hage died in a car accident in 2006. Craig got run out of the Senate by his Republican colleagues not because he was a conspiracy mongering nut, but because he was alleged to be soliciting illicit homosexual sex in airport restrooms. However, before they left Congress they were the leading members in what was referred to as the Black Helicopter Caucus, which included a number of other Republicans.

Chenoweth-Hage was actually featured by the Militia of Montana. Their Fall 1994 catalogue – think Sears & Roebuck, but for white supremacists and anti-government extremists – featured videos of one of Congresswoman Chenoweth-Hage’s speeches about the New World Order. While Congresswoman Chenoweth-Hage’s spokesperson stated the video was being sold without her permission, the reality is that as far as the Militia of Montana was concerned she was not just a fellow traveler, but a political visionary whose message they wanted to promote. Her obituary in The Washington Post includes this interesting bit (emphasis mine):

Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, who served from 1995 to 2001 as an unabashed opponent of laws that limited personal freedom, attracted much support from the militia fringe movement that found a home in the interior West during the 1990s.

In turn, she scolded Congress after the Oklahoma City federal building bombing for not trying to understand anti-government activists. She also held hearings on “black helicopters,” which militia members believed were filled with United Nations-sponsored storm troopers eager to swoop into the broken-down ranches of the rural West and impose international law.

Chenoweth-Hage, along with Craig, turned the hearings into the incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco into a circus. James Ridgeway*, the long time Village Voice reporter who documented the extreme right and passed away two week’s ago, described their antics this way at the time in August 1995:

Meanwhile, Helen Chenoweth in the House and Larry Craig in the Senate continue to run wild, attacking the effrontery of federal agents and invoking the specter of the dreaded black helicopters.

The Waco hearings have provided little substance. Unlike Watergate, or even the Iran-contra inves­tigation, there has been little or no effort by the Republican chairmen to figure out why the raid was staged, and the hearings have largely omitted the ludicrous attempts of the ATF to woo the press that played a major role in the timing of the first raid. From start to finish, the hearings have been a PR move, basically an effort to publicly attack the ATF in order to revoke the assault-weapon ban. More sub­tly, the hearings have played to the Christian right, key supporters of the Republican majority, and an entity everyone in Congress fears. But more than anything, the hearings have provided a dazzling display of farce and hypocrisy. Repub­licans who had been slashing away at the Fourth Amendment on the House floor earlier this spring in their determination to pass a tough crime bill have now been portray­ing themselves as feel-good liberals, invoking the rights of the Constitu­tion on behalf of Koresh and the other “individualistic” Christians within the compound.

Aside from the desire to pander to Christian conservatives and the gun lobby, the Waco hearings are also an attempt to play to the lib­ertarian-anarchist wing of the party. Behind the attack on the ATF is anarchist frothing for the role of county sheriff in govern­ment. In Waco, the sheriff was on friendly terms with Koresh and clearly had no intention of challenging the Davidians, despite the accusa­tions made against the group. Indeed, various Republicans at the hearings came awfully close to suggesting that the sanctity of pri­vate property should have acted as a barrier against any federal intrusion. The argument that what Koresh was doing was his business and nobody else’s will get any politician, Christian right or other, firmly clobbered in the polls.

As we’ve seen in the past five weeks, the only thing that has changed since the mid 1990s and today is that today the majority of the House Republican and at least a third, if not more of the Senate Republican caucuses are now behaving like Congresswoman Chenoweth-Hage, Senator Craig, and a small handful of their Republican colleagues in the House back in the 1990s. When you see Senators Grassley and Johnson pushing the completely fact free and repeatedly debunked lies that the attack on the Capitol was a false flag conducted by extreme leftists like Antifa and Black Lives Matter in order to create a casus belli for American Federal law enforcement to go after white, at least nominally Christian Republicans, Republican leaning Independents, and conservatives or Senator Hawley suddenly very concerned about just how the FBI is going about collecting evidence from the cell phones and smart phones and social media accounts of those involved in the 6th January attack, and Senator Cotton unequivocally stating he would like MS13 to be arrested, all you’re seeing is the 2021 version of Chenoweth-Hage’s and Craig’s mid 1990s canine and equine extravaganza.

There are a couple of differences between then and now. Social and digital media is one. Fox News and its even more fact free and more extreme competitors in conservative “news” media is another. The sheer numbers of Republican elected and appointed officials at the Federal, state, and municipal levels of government that have all embraced the fact free, conspiracy driven empirically sealed information system that undergirds modern conservatism – to both drive the information and to benefit from it – is a third. We are now fully in a place where the ideological extremists who operate within the system (elected and appointed Republican officials, conservative movement leaders, conservative “news” media personalities, conservative religious leaders, etc) are leveraging the threats of and actual acts of domestic terrorism by the violent extremists to achieve the same objectives. This too is not new in the US or in other places. In the US this occurred to both overthrow Reconstruction and to then implement, expand, and consolidate Jim Crow and to keep it place for almost a hundred years. It was used in Germany, Italy, and Spain to bring fascists to power either before or during World War II. It was used in Vichy France and Quisling’s Norway as excuses to capitulate to and collaborate with the NAZIs.

It is important to use a fine brush to ensure that an appropriate distinction is made between the actual domestic extremists who are domestic terrorists, promote domestic terrorism, and support domestic terrorism and Americans who do not. However, we can’t let being empirically accurate in defining, delineating, and conceptualizing this problem and problem set blind us to the fact that the objectives of the ideological extremists in Congress like Senators Hawley, Cruz, Johnson, Lee, and Cotton and Representatives Greene, Boebert, Gaetz, Cawthorne, Jordan, and far, far too many others in their caucuses, as well as their counterparts at the state and local levels, and the people that support them as long as they support Trump’s America First agenda are the exact same objectives as the domestic extremists who seek to overthrow the small “l” liberal self-governing democratic-republic established by the US Constitution and replace it with a revanchist, white Christian herrenvolk. The real problem facing America is that if the ideological extremists working within the system have the same objectives as the domestic extremists seeking to use violence to achieve those same goals, how do you protect against the latter without destroying the constitutional order in trying to contain the former? That’s what makes this a very wicked problem.

Open thread!

* I highly recommend Ridgeway’s 1991 documentary Blood In the Face.

 

 

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  3. 3.

    JPL

    Grassley apparently feels that the White Supremacists need to be defended.   I found his statements offensive.

  6. 6.

    Gin & Tonic

    Anyway, the US has imposed additional Magnitsky sanctions on persons associated with the poisoning of Navalny. Bill Browder says they don’t go far enough, and don’t hurt the people closest to Putin. I haven’t made a judgement yet, but will note this is more that we ever got or could have expected from Former Guy.

  7. 7.

    Steve in the ATL

    @jackmac: this lost its charm a long, long time ago.  And it’s worse for a little known poster.  How about a witty comment instead?

  9. 9.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @JPL: I have to keep walking away and coming back because the Republicans seem to have no connection to reality and it makes me want to throw things. How does one deal with such obvious, complete detachment from the facts??

  11. 11.

    H.E.Wolf

    Thank you for the post!

    FYI, it looks as if spellcheck overrode your intention to use “collaborate” in this sentence:

    It was used in Vichy France and Quisling’s Norway as excuses to capitulate to and corroborate with the NAZIs.

  16. 16.

    Anoniminous

    The elected leaders of the National Republican White People’s Party are protecting their core values and core voters.

    What else do you expect?

  17. 17.

    piratedan

    just sitting here and wondering when these guys decide to take the next step I guess, I would assume that after an attempted coup that they’ll ramp up to political assassination as the next check box to be filled in.

  18. 18.

    VOR

    It seems to be an article of faith on the Right that their people are polite and well-mannered. If protesters caused problems then by definition they must have been Antifa or BLM. Nice MAGAts would never be abusive, beat a police officer with a fire extinguisher, or smear feces on a wall. Had to be a false flag operation.

  19. 19.

    Cheryl Rofer

    We are going to be hearing so much history about how none of this is totally new. But at one time, the Republican Party sought to damp down open insurrection.

  21. 21.

    Baud

    @VOR:

    I think this is largely correct.  It is central to their sense of self worth that they not only are morally superior to “us,” but that they be seen by society as morally superior to us. There is simply no way they can abide an honest assessment of January 6 without shattering their illusion of themselves.

  26. 26.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Cheryl Rofer: I mean, it’s not “new”. This behavior has been around for decades and/or centuries. But the fact that the whole party has now bought into it rather than just sort of tolerating is new.

    At least, to me. :(

  28. 28.

    LeftCoastYankee

    Ahh… the old “New World Order.” Back when conspiracy theories were only “mostly unhinged.”

    Some of this crap had traction on the very silly left.

    I remember going to a guest lecture at my very liberal college from a guy I promptly forgot. He started with some standard fare on the 60’s assassinations, reeled back to the 50’s and the birth of the CIA, popped out an assertion that the CIA was behind the attempt on Ronald Reagan and also secretly tried to kill Nixon at some point, and then connected this to the Bush clan, before tying them back to John Wilkes Booth and Lincoln. In short somehow George HW Bush was responsible for all this.

    My friend and I started heckling him about who killed Jesus, and got up and left.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @VOR: ​
     

    It seems to be an article of faith on the Right that their people are polite and well-mannered.

    I don’t think this has anything to do with it. They know damn well who it was who tried to overturn the election. They’re just making up a bunch of bullshit to try to confuse the issue. And yes, that applies as much to the base as it does to the leaders. They all know it’s a pack of lies, but they’re doing their part to pretend it isn’t.

  36. 36.

    gene108

    Grassley was first elected in 1980 to the Senate. He’s been in Republican politics before the marriage to the religious right.

    The fact he’s jumping on the crazy train means to me that Q and the militia movement have taken over the Republican Party. There are no longer any “institutionalists” in the Republican Party. It’s conspiracy theories all the way down.

  37. 37.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: It’s not that he’s insane. I think he’s making a very calculated move that he’s got to get out of the “oops, our deregulation/incompetence killed a bunch of people and destroyed lots of infrastructure during the cold snap” hole.

    He thinks that due to increased vaccination and the ending of the harder winter months, trends will naturally go down for covid. And so he’s going to let a bunch of people die that otherwise wouldn’t, because he wants a popularity boost and thinks Republicans will applaud him getting rid of ‘liberal’ policy.

    He’s Texas. He’s probably right that this will help him more than hurt him, just at the expense of ordinary people in Texas.

  38. 38.

    sab

    @gene108: I think he has dementia and is being manipulated by his staff.

    My dad used to be a liberal Republican back when there were such critters. Fox and dementia fixed that. The dad of my youth wouldn’t recognize my current dad.

    Not saying Grassley was ever a liberal. Just sayong he is really old and not sharp at all anymore.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Philbert: No, that is the wrong analogy. The better one is Iraqi extremism. I first wrote about it here in 2019 and then, again, just three and a half weeks ago:

    https://balloon-juice.com/2019/01/27/a-preliminary-strategic-cultural-assessment-of-the-us-2020-political-and-election-operating-environment/

    https://balloon-juice.com/2021/02/09/we-have-reached-the-point-where-the-parody-has-become-the-reality-the-gop-has-turned-itself-into-jam/

    I’ve seen several recent attempts to make a comparison between the Republican Party and Sinn Féin, especially in the immediate aftermath of the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol. I don’t think that’s the right comparison. The Irish Troubles was inextricably tied into the Catholic/republican and Protestant/loyalist dispute in Northern Ireland. While there are some similarities, that’s not what is going on with the Republican Party right now or what the Republican Party has been building too over the past several decades that got them to where they are today.

    As I wrote here back in January 2019, the real political, social, economic, and religious disputes in America and among Americans for the better part of the past decade have not really been about nominal tax rates, the Defense budget, or the size of the safety net. Rather they have been much more like the disputes between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia, Arabs and Kurds, which is an often bloody fight over who gets to actually be an Iraqi and claim the full rights and privileges that come with doing so. The American dispute is similar. It is a fight over what American really means, what America really is, and who is and can be and who is not and cannot be an American citizen. This dispute is a long simmering low intensity war for America, which has comparatively been non-violent with only occasional violent spikes. It is related to the much more violent dispute throughout America over these same issues that were institutionalized in Jim Crow and segregation where the violence was targeted against Blacks.

    The Republican Party at all levels from national to municipal has decided it wants this fight. It wants to have a sharp, permanent determination and delineation over just what American means, just what America is, and just who actually gets to be an American. The Republican Party is the political wing. The conservative movement organizations, including conservative Christian and traditionalist Catholic churches and organizations, as well as some orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and some religiously conservative members and organizations of other religious and ethnic minorities* serve as the social welfare/social services wing. And the cosplay patriot (cosplatriot), militia, and other violent, armed paramilitary groups orbiting the Republican Party and the conservative movement are the militant armed wing.

    * The sad reality is that if the goal is ever attained, which is to redefine and remake the US as a white, Christian herrenvolk democracy, then the conservative Protestants across all denominations of white evangelicalism (evangelicals, charismatics, and fundamentalists) will turn on the traditionalist Catholics, the orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews, the Latter Day Saints, as well as the conservative/traditionalist Hindus and black evangelicals that have aligned themselves with them. Once these religious and/or ethnic minorities have been purged and dealt with, the sad reality is that the white evangelicals, charismatics, and fundamentalists will then turn on each other in an attempt to establish the properly pure white Christianity.

  43. 43.

    Winston

    ASAP the Democratic party should pass the 2021 version of the 1954 Communist Control Act as the Republican Control Act and make the Republican Party illegal.

  47. 47.

    Geminid

    @gene108: Grassley’s path may be comparable to that of radio host Neil Boortz. During the George Bush years, Boortz was hostile to the “talibangelicals,” used to call Alabama “Alabamistan.” Last year, even though evangelicals are now dominant in the party, Boortz was all in on the Republicans, unconditionally.                                                        This may be an example of “negative partisanship,” where people embrace one party because of their fear and loathing of the other. Political scientist  Rachel Bitecofer makes a good exposition of the concept in her preview of last years election in the February 2020 New Republic, titled “Hate is on the Ballot.”                                                                Grassley should know better, though. He might be losing it mentally, not just emotionally. As for Boortz, he talked some about the prevalence of Alzheimers in his family, before he retired a few years ago.

  48. 48.

    Cameron

    @Adam L Silverman: Sorry that I’m unclear – I agree with your prediction of how things will go; it just reminds me of his poem about the Nazis: “First, they came for the Socialists…” etc., etc.  The various groups that believe they’re part of the New World Order will find out that that’s somewhat less than accurate.  Let’s hope that doesn’t come to pass.  Thanks for your post!

  49. 49.

    CaseyL

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Unfortunately, the only way to be rid of it is for their use of the Big Lie to no longer be rewarded; i.e., they have to be voted out.  But since their voters love the Big Lie (or at least don’t mind it),  they won’t be losing re-election anytime soon.

    Next best, is for Democrats to stay motivated, and active, and voting to elect Democrats everywhere else, so the GQP is never again the majority Party.

  50. 50.

    billcinsd

    @MisterForkbeard: so the “oops, our deregulation/incompetence killed a bunch of people and destroyed lots of infrastructure during the cold snap” hole. will lead to the “oops, our deregulation/incompetence killed a bunch of people due to Covid” hole.

  51. 51.

    Martin

    There’s always going to be nutters in the parties. The issue is whether they run the party are or primaried by the party. Chenoweth-Hage was a back-bencher. But the GOP is now being run by this crew, and that’s terrifying.

  52. 52.

    Uncle Omar

    I remember seeing Blood in the Face on cable TV in the 90’s.  It caused three reactions, 1) These mofos are crazy. 2) I went to high school with these crazy mofos and the only reason they graduated was because one of their respective parents was on the school board, and 3) These mofos are dangerously stupid.  It, the film, also shows why West Eurasia was not sad to see their respective ancestors leave for North America.

  53. 53.

    JaySinWA

    I recall the Ruby Ridge incident consuming a lot of my attention. I don’t know that I saw much of the hearings and can believe they were a mess. OTOH there were a number of issues with the law enforcement approach. We still have yet to address qualified immunity and other issues that arose from that case: https://www.britannica.com/event/Ruby-Ridge

    Waco seemed like a total disaster on all sides. The hearings probably did more to muddy the waters than anything learned from them. Add in any number of participants and bystanders offering after the fact counterfactuals about how things would have been different if they had been in command.

    These events set up the future government responses with the Bundys at the Ranch and in Oregon. Lots of R’s aligned with anti BLM (Land management, not protesters) and Constitutional Sheriff movements have been warning signals for some time.

  54. 54.

    JaySinWA

    @CaseyL:

    Unfortunately, the only way to be rid of it is for their use of the Big Lie to no longer be rewarded; i.e., they have to be voted out. 

    The thing about the big lie is that it keeps on giving cover for any defeat to be called fraud and opens the possibility to attack the loss by use of force.

  55. 55.

    pattonbt

    As always, the next question to the seditionists a-holes should be “well, if it was ANTIFA, shouldn’t we throw the book at them for attempting a coup on the US?”

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    Chuck Grassley is 87. I sure hope my former roommate retired VADM Mike Franken runs against him.

  57. 57.

    pattonbt

    But on a larger point, I think it is things like this which make it apparent that the Republican party is irretrievably on the path towards permanent minority.  They are deep into the “believe harder / clap louder” phase and only the biggest, brashest bullhorns will get the prime-time coverage.

    While this potential has been obvious since the late 70s early 80s, it’s fully baked now.

    Unfortunately, the way the constitution works, the minority still has juice.  But it is displays like this that should remind any serving Democratic Senator or Representative that there is no sense negotiating with Republicans – now or ever again.  And absolute final proof the filibuster must die.

  59. 59.

    ET

    The FBI has never taken anti government white supremacy as seriously as it should. Not just because leftover Hoover BS and white male courtesy/bigotry, but because the FBI knows that Republican members of Congress are very touchy about the topic for personal and political reasons.

  60. 60.

    J R in WV

    Thanks for this analysis, Adam.

    Makes me glad I’m an old childless guy, and won’t live to see the end of this process either way. I feel sad for my young liberal friends and the children of my older liberal friends.

    So despicable these monsters are!

  61. 61.

    leeleeFL

    @cain: Not looking for, demanding a lot of equality.  And rightfully so.  The forebearance of the Black population during the years since the Civil War ended has been nothing short of amazing.  We of the White persuasion have enjoyed more than a century of time while Black people waited for enough of us to realize how privileged we have been.  The situation has reached critical mass, and these reactionary assholes can see their old tricks no longer work on enough of us.  They are DYING!  About damn time!

  62. 62.

    A.J.

    Adam thanks for this as always.

    I’ve found since mid-January I’m becoming more and more worried.

    The only hope I have at the moment is in organizers like Stacey Abrams, but I recall reading that we were only one Wisconsin Supreme Court justice away from that body overturning WI’s results…Idk, fuck.

  63. 63.

    leeleeFL

    Adam, I got to read your post after I wrote mine. Insightful, as always.  I think they are dying, but they will take many with them.  It’s sad.  The Founders were not as good as they might have been, they were flawed and selfish. But, I would happily sell body parts to have them here now, bashing these assholes into dust.

    And they would

  64. 64.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    What is all this I keep hearing about Aunt Teefa? Who is she and what is she doing?
    Emily Litella​ ​

  65. 65.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    It’s another case of literally no information and no answer can alter the messaging.

    Hm. Maybe there’s another word for this. When you know the truth – you’ve just been told it by the person who is most capable of knowing it – and you instead say something completely false to facts, that means you’re… damn it. There MUST be a word for saying something false, deliberately, because the truth doesn’t serve you.

    Well, maybe if I was a journalist, I’d be a skilled enough wordsmith to figure out what that mystery word might be.

    (if Jim Sciutto isn’t a total tool, I tender my apologies, but only insofar as his complaint was “dude, I can think of a dozen people who deserve that mockery more than I do!”)

  66. 66.

    Interstadial

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Once these religious and/or ethnic minorities have been purged and dealt with, the sad reality is that the white evangelicals, charismatics, and fundamentalists will then turn on each other in an attempt to establish the properly pure white Christianity.

    Ultimately, there is nothing that would once and for all ‘scratch the itch’ that these people have.  They will always need to go farther to find an enemy to defame, fear, hate, and finally destroy, even if that means turning against some of their own, and heretofore highly loyal, members.  There is nothing these people can do that will allow them to finally reach a state of peace where they can feel that they have truly achieved all they wanted to and can now rest in safety.

  67. 67.

    Richard

    Hello. We are in trouble. We don’t care who was first, 2nd, third or fourth.
    My people are doing the best we can to survive this crap. The government has been very disappointing. We are hiding in our houses.
    We don’t care about what they decide in Washington DC. We think these Republicans are full of shit. We don’t trust the Democrats either.
    We are in trouble. We ask our elected officials for help. They say it is not possible because the other party.
    They say it is about masks. They say it is about Jesus. They say it is about trans people, or abortion or gun rights.
    Let me tell you, we are suffering while they do this. It works perfectly for them, because they like it. They get to be the last survivors of their religion.
    Meanwhile, out here in Podunk, we just are waiting for something to happen. That’s if we live. We have food and could probably do another year of this. But i don’t see why we should have to.
    Why do we have to this?

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