All about that grift

Last week, RAM hosted a Unify Challenge, in which participants speak to another American with a different background, location, and/or political ideology to talk about the issues and find common ground. I had a wonderful chat with Bruce from Chicago, and we found many more areas of agreement than disagreement. Renew America Movement Fellow Lynn Schmidt participated as well and had this to say:

I was paired up with a lovely woman from Florida who was much to the left of me on the political spectrum. She and I agreed on all but two issues and still could appreciate where the other was coming from on those two issues. We listened to each other and understood that our personal experiences guide us in why we think the way we do. I came away from the Unify Challenge feeling hopeful for our country. I highly recommend participating. 

With all that’s going on in the country right now, sitting down for a good, old-fashioned discussion (albeit through modern means) is a tonic I, too, strongly recommend. My cordial and constructive conversation with a fellow American earlier in the day sustained me well through the Jan. 6 hearing on Thursday night, reminding me that while much divides us, so much more unites us. We need to remember that now. —Melissa Amour, Managing Editor

• Primary voters head to the polls in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina —The Fulcrum

• Senate gun deal likely to face pushback from House GOP —The Hill

• President addresses inflation at AFL-CIO convention, economists predict interest rate hike —ABC News

• Officer hailed as hero testifies at Capitol riot trial —New Haven Register

• U.S. House passes bill expanding Supreme Court security —Reuters

The big bamboozle

There was a good number of standout moments at the House select committee’s hearing yesterday on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Rep. Liz Cheney stated that “an apparently inebriated” Rudy Giuliani encouraged Donald Trump to declare victory in the 2020 election before all votes had been counted. Former Attorney General Bill Barr discredited the election conspiracy film “2000 Mules.” Former Fox News Political Editor Chris Stirewalt declared of Trump’s chances of winning the election after Nov. 7, 2020, “You're better off to play the Powerball.” Trump may not have won the lottery, but he found something nearly as lucrative. —USA Today

• “Not only was there the ‘big lie’; there was the big rip-off.” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the committee, demonstrated how Trump planted the seeds for his plan to overturn the election, undermining confidence in the outcome well before any votes had been cast. After he lost the election, and the victory for Joe Biden was certified state by state, he persisted in his false claims, even as a long list of his own aides and advisers counseled him otherwise.

• “It is clear that he intentionally misled his donors.” Money ostensibly raised to “stop the steal” instead went to Trump and his allies, including $1 million to a political group run by several of his former staff members, including Stephen Miller; more than $200,000 to Trump hotels; $5 million to Event Strategies Inc., which ran the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot; and $60,000 to Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., for delivering a three-minute speech at the rally. —The New York Times

• “We will follow the facts wherever they lead.” All in all, the committee is confident that it has enough evidence for the Justice Department to consider an unprecedented criminal indictment against Trump. Today’s scheduled hearing was abruptly postponed, but more of the evidence gathered during the investigation will be revealed at tomorrow’s live public hearing, scheduled for 1pm ET. —Associated Press

MORE: New details emerge of Oval Office confrontation three days before Jan. 6 —The Washington Post

Sargent: It's not delusion…it's deception

“One of our greatest collective failings in response to Trump’s determination to destroy our political system has been the credulity granted to the idea that ‘Trump and his supporters actually believe the “big lie.”’ That refrain has been ubiquitous for 18 months. But this notion, which is usually accompanied by hand-wringing about our ‘two separate realities,’ lets Trump and his allies off the hook. The much more sordid story is this: They planned and executed a premeditated, far-reaching plot to keep Trump in power illegitimately, in the full knowledge that his loss was procedurally legitimate.” —Greg Sargent in The Washington Post

Greg Sargent is a columnist at The Washington Post and the author of “An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics.”

MORE: Opinion: Jan. 6 panel is building case for a conspiracy —CNN

‘They came to riot downtown’

Police in Idaho say they are receiving death threats after thwarting a possible domestic terror attack over the weekend. Thirty-one members of the so-called Patriot Front were arrested on Saturday in Coeur d'Alene, where they allegedly planned to wreak havoc at a Pride parade. None are residents of the city, and it remains unclear why they targeted it. The suspects were found in the back of a U-Haul truck, along with shields, shin guards, and a smoke grenade, among other gear. Groups that monitor extremist ideology say Patriot Front promotes fascism and the creation of a white ethno-state. The FBI is assisting in the investigation. —Idaho Statesman

MORE: 'Uvalde was an act': QAnon group harasses Dallas gun violence marchers —Chron

Snyder: Closed primaries stifle the moderate majority

“The [Pennsylvania] primary results show how closed and winner-take-all primary elections, plus the damnable egos of many who seek office for the wrong reasons, plus the learned disdain for politics among the great majority of our people all add up to giving vastly disproportionate power and representation to a relative handful of the most angry among us.” —Craig Snyder in Bucks County Courier Times

Craig Snyder is the Pennsylvania State Leader for the Renew America Movement, former chief of staff to the late Sen. Arlen Specter, and a former candidate for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate.

MORE: ‘Comes across as a cult guy’: The Pennsylvania candidate freaking out both the left and the right —Politico

Time for a #TrumpExit?

For many, it's long past time, but others in the Republican Party finally seem to be catching up, reaching the conclusion that there is a future for conservatives without Donald Trump. Whether it's Republicans disgusted by Trump’s obsession with the 2020 election (including the usually Trump-sympathetic New York Post) or conservatives disavowing the GOP altogether and forging new political alliances, all agree that the only way forward is sans the ex-president. —The New Yorker

• Tom Rice. Renewer Rep. Tom Rice was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year for inciting the Capitol insurrection. He now finds himself in a tough primary because of that vote, but says, “I did it then, and I would do it again tomorrow,” because “that was the conservative vote.” Moreover, he hopes the GOP finds a new way. “I hope he doesn't run again. And I think if he does run again, he hurts the Republican Party,” he says of Trump. “We desperately need somebody who's going to bring people together. And he is not that guy.” —Insider

• Don Bacon. Rep. Don Bacon didn't vote to impeach Trump, but he's had it with him. "We have to also learn the lesson, 'Why did we lose in 2020?'” he said. “It was the comportment and the temperament, and yes, a democracy respects elections. And our president should have respected the conclusion.” Asked whether he'd support Trump if he runs in the 2024 Republican primary, Bacon says he’ll be “looking for other candidates.” —Axios

• Evan McMullin. The two-party “doom loop” doesn't have to be our inescapable fate. In fact, for much of American history, minor political parties played prominent roles in electoral politics, frequently partnering or “fusing” with major parties by endorsing the same candidate to build a majority coalition. That's what's happening in Utah, where Republican-turned-independent Evan McMullin gained the endorsement of the state’s Democratic Party in April to help him defeat Sen. Mike Lee. Will this strategy be replicated elsewhere? Stay tuned. —The xxxxxx

MORE: Bill Barr is handing Republicans a Trump exit strategy —The Washington Post

Cherwitz: Cheney has the courage of her convictions

“History, in my opinion, will recall that [Rep. Liz] Cheney, unlike most of her Republican colleagues in the House and Senate, did the right thing—that principle and morality, not political gamesmanship, motivated her behavior. … She wasn’t afraid to stand up and speak. Cheney was not influenced by the political reality that in Wyoming she lags behind her Trump-supported opponent in the polls by as much as 30 points. Her love of our country’s democratic republic trumped (no pun intended) political ambition.” —Richard Cherwitz in The Hill

Richard Cherwitz is Ernest S. Sharpe Centennial Professor Emeritus in the Moody College of Communication’s Department of Rhetoric and Writing at University of Texas, Austin, and a founding director of the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium.

MORE: With gravitas and grace, Liz Cheney ‘anchored’ Jan. 6 committee hearing —The Hill

In reply to Jim V. from New York, all evidence indicates that a Candidate Kardashian would have extensive experience in growing a profitable global brand from little more than accidental fame, seems to have a level head and the ability to delegate, and evinces some respect for the rule of law. All in all, this pedigree would put her ahead of 95% of any other possible Republican candidate I could think of. —Ted O., Massachusetts

I went to the Fox News website to see what their pundits had to say about the Jan. 6 hearings. I was dismayed—but not surprised—that they did not even cover the hearing. Instead they offered up their usual deflections (economy, inflation...), a litany of other lies and misinformation to get us to think that it wasn't that big a deal, and complaints that there are no prime-time hearings about gas prices.

Yes, we have serious issues to deal with right now. Americans are suffering on various fronts. President Biden may not be doing the best job, or at least meeting our hoped-for expectations. But we must never forget that we had a president who literally tried to take over and subvert the democratic process (and continues to try to do so).

I fear that those who believe everything Tucker Carlson has to say probably didn't watch the hearings, and will continue on with their heads in the sand, denying and/or minimizing what happened that fateful day, as well as the days that led up to it and those that have followed.

The founders of this country may have had a point when they expressed concerns about the dangers of an uninformed (and today's misinformed and disinformed) electorate. —Read G., Utah

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff, the Renew America Movement, or the Renew America Foundation.