The January 6 committee should soon turn to how the Big Lie diffused beyond the White House.
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Yesterday the January 6 committee heard witnesses — all Republican insiders — testifying to what we all suspected from the start: Donald Trump knew he had lost.
They told him, over and over, that he lost. Yes, as former Attorney General Bill Barr testified, he may have seemed “detached from reality,” but that is because he willed himself to be. He knew he was going to lose. He lost. And he decided to lie to his followers and the country in an effort to overturn the election.
The Big Lie, it turns out, is a lie. Not a passionate if irrational fixation. (Though it is not very reassuring that Trump’s only defense is, quite literally, an insanity defense.)
Yet millions of people believe the lie their president told them, a lie amplified by Fox News and other media outlets. Why shouldn’t they? Politicians know better. Few of them actually believe the nonsense, which makes their acquiescence even more morally questionable. As Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said to her GOP colleagues, “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
The January 6 committee invited my colleague Wendy Weiser to submit testimony
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. In it, she detailed the ways in which the Big Lie, which drove insurrectionists to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, continues to drive
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state-level policies to restrict voting rights and enable partisan interference in election administration.
The connection could not be clearer. Much of the antidemocratic legislation offered in the past 18 months directly references false claims made in the failed lawsuits that sought to nullify the 2020 elections. For example, although a court dismissed claims that out-of-state voters cast significant numbers of ballots in Arizona, legislators still introduced a bill to increase voter roll purges in the state. Georgia passed a law limiting drop boxes and restricting access to mail-in voting — both in response to baseless claims made in failed lawsuits. Legislators in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin also introduced voting “reforms” to remedy wholly fabricated failures in the 2020 election.
State Rep. Barry Fleming (R), chair of the Georgia House Special Committee on Elections, compared mail ballots to “the shady part of town down near the docks you do not want to wander into because the chance of being shanghaied is significant.” Pennsylvania State Rep. Russ Diamond (R), sponsor of restrictive voting bills in the state, said he believes that officials counted 200,000 extra votes and considers certifying Pennsylvania’s election results to have been “absolutely premature, unconfirmed, and in error.”
Some sponsors of restrictive voting laws explicitly connected their bills to debunked claims of 2020 voter fraud. When introducing legislation to enhance voter identification requirements and make registration more difficult, Texas State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R) claimed that the “November 2020 election demonstrated the lack of transparency and lack of integrity within the election process.”
The clamor has grown so loud that it poses a threat not only to our elections, but to the physical safety of our election officials. More than one in six local election officials have been threatened, sometimes with death, and often by people who specifically reference the false claims that Donald Trump spread.
The committee should focus on its principal task: outlining the criminal conspiracy by Donald Trump and his minions to overthrow American democracy. As they do so, let’s remember that the poison they are uncovering has spread throughout our political system. The committee can’t stop that. We can.
The Big Lie Faces a New Test in Nevada
As in many other battleground states, Nevada’s primaries have put election denialism at the forefront of its election administration races. Last month, Georgia voters eliminated nominees who pushed fraud allegations. However, there remains a very real possibility that candidates backing the Big Lie that Trump won in 2020 could run or certify 2024 elections in Nevada — a prospect that has fueled record-high campaign cash in the gubernatorial and secretary of state contests. “The results of the primary . . . will shed new light on how voters respond to election denial by campaigns,” Ian Vandewalker writes. Read more
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After Roe, Protecting Women’s Privacy and Rights
Earlier today, Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, the Brennan Center’s women and democracy fellow, and board member Melissa Murray of NYU Law were invited to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House. The topic couldn’t be more urgent. If Roe v. Wade is about to be reversed, as the Supreme Court leak suggested is highly likely, what steps can be taken to protect women? Weiss-Wolf talked about the apps, now used by 100 million women worldwide, that help keep track of periods and menstruation. These can pose privacy risks and could now be subpoenaed by law enforcement in states that make abortion a crime. A whole array of protections by government and business will be needed to ensure that women are not stripped of rights and freedom in this new scary era. NEWSWEEK
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The Creeping Threat to Marriage Equality
With Roe set to be struck down on grounds that abortion rights aren’t “deeply rooted in American history,” many are worried that marriage equality could be the Supreme Court’s next target. However, efforts by the Christian right to undermine legal recognition for same-sex unions in the name of “religious freedom” may pose a far more insidious threat. “The forces of reaction will continue their attempts to whittle down the right as much as possible. And that means, more than ever, we need an engaged public willing to stand up to those who seek to roll back progress,” John Kowal writes this Pride Month. Read more
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SCOTUS Needs an Overhaul
The Supreme Court’s conservative wing is likely to overrule Roe despite broad American support for abortion rights. This is one of several upcoming cases that has eroded public trust in the Court and spurred calls for reform. “The lack of structural democratic accountability is much of the reason why we ended up with a Court so out of step with the public and with mainstream legal thought,” Madiba Dennie writes. “But it could also spell a crisis for the Court’s own legitimacy, spurring new attention to the broken system that gave us today’s radical supermajority.” DAME MAGAZINE
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The Big Lie and Its Fringe Bedfellows
Donald Trump and his allies have proliferated the lie that he won in 2020. The damage caused by the Big Lie, however, isn’t just limited to the integrity of our elections and people’s right to vote. This conspiracy has become intertwined with other fringe beliefs such as the “great replacement” and “independent state legislature” theories, which work in tandem to achieve broader un-American aims. “The Big Lie not only insists the election was stolen but names the groups it believes are culpable and endorses anti-democratic means to exclude them from the electoral process,” Theodore Johnson writes. THE xxxxxx
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News
Sean Morales-Doyle on Georgia's upcoming runoffs and expectations for turnout // AP
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Eric Ruben on interpreting the Second Amendment // VOX
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Dan Weiner on the the January 6 hearings // MSNBC
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Hernandez Stroud on the potential federal takeover of Rikers jail // NEW YORK POST
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Douglas Keith on the role of state supreme courts in fight for abortion rights // POLITICO
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