You hear the complaint all the time: When fighting Trump, our side too often brings a knife to a gun fight.
Usually, I bristle at the criticism. I know that in my own work, my team and I fight hard in court to protect voting rights. I take a perverse pride in Steven Bannon berating Republican lawyers for not being as tough as me. I will never forget Lou Dobbs yelling at Stephen Miller to have the GOP pay me $500 million to stop beating them in court.
I see others fighting against Trump and winning as well. I don’t know how anyone can reflect on how Nancy Pelosi handled Trump during his first term and not be impressed. Democratic Governors like J.B. Pritzker, Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro stand up to him daily. If I were a betting man, I would put my money on Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer over Mike Johnson and John Thune in the legislative fights ahead.
The two places where I agree with criticism, however, are around the subtle rehabilitation of Trump as something other than an election denier and the judicial system’s total failure to hold Trump responsible in his criminal cases.
This week, both were on full display.
On Monday, too many Trump critics used the day to praise Democrats for being well behaved rather than focus on the violent insurrection of four years ago. Jan. 6 should be reserved for remembering what Trump and the angry mob he inspired did to attack this country’s peaceful transfer of power, period.
The quiet shift was in full display in a Washington Post headline on Friday about the release of Jack Smith’s report: Appeals court allows release of Smith’s report on Trump’s election-reversal effort.
To be clear the “election-reversal effort” involved frivolous litigation, fraudulent electors, pressuring state officials and a violent insurrection to block the peaceful transfer of power. It is possible that this is more Bezos-inspired obeyance in advance. More likely, it is just journalistic drift towards normalizing the obscene.
Meanwhile, as the week went on…
