Marion County, Iowa Republicans Call for McConnell and McCarthy to Step Down for Alleged Offenses Against Trump
And Trump is charged with insurrection
Sign in Attica Iowa, summer and fall 2020
From the New York Times, December 19, 2022:
Accusing Trump of insurrection, the Jan. 6 committee refers him to the Justice Dept.
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol accused former President Donald J. Trump on Monday of inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress, and one more federal crime as it referred him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.
If you were like me, you were glued to the news on Monday. So much to process on this historic day. Media coverage was all over the map, and not in a good way.
At 5:45 p.m. Monday, a screenshot of The New York Times is above. Lots of January 6 coverage, as there should be.
I captured the above screenshot of the Washington Post web page a minute later. A critical presentation of the facts of a President wanting to derail our democracy for personal gain.
Above is a screenshot of Fox News a minute later. The world is an entirely different place. The charges against Trump are buried. Biden and Harris are hammered.
And above is Newsmax. Same story.
One would think that if a former president of the United States were charged with inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress, and one more federal crime as it referred him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, it would be the top of the news?
Not in the dominant conservative media. Rather than reporting on Trump, all the reporting targets Biden and other Democratic policies or politicians. And frivolous clickbait.
On these websites and on air, rather than Trump being accused of being a criminal, Biden and other Democrats and their policies are portrayed as causing irreparable harm to our country. I’m sure they will eventually get to covering the referral to the Justice Department but it will be framed as an illegitimate prosecution, and Trump will be portrayed as the victim.
When not glued to the coverage, I noticed that a friend who is a Republican and formerly served in the Iowa legislature had sent me two texts. I downloaded them and copied and pasted them below. The Marion County, Iowa Republicans (where I live) had recently passed a resolution demanding that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and other Republican officials step down for alleged crimes against Trump.
I confirmed with another Republican friend who served on the local executive committee in the past that this was the real deal. I don’t think for a minute that local Republicans created this document. It was served to them.
Leslie Stahl was the first television journalist to sit down with Trump for an interview following his election victory in 2016. She asked him why he attacked the press so much. "He said, 'You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.”
It worked. Plus, there is a conservative media that is complicit. Given this media environment, it’s not surprising that the Marion County Republicans would issue this statement. But it is just remarkably sad.
Unlike the Republicans who offered this resolution, many of my Republican friends are sick of Trump and ready to move on. I only fear that they will move on to other Republicans who are more palatable yet more destructive because they are smarter than Trump.
There is also an opening for Democrats.
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Thanks for writing about this, Bob. While none of this is surprising my reaction is wow, just wow.............
Your closing remark about the concern over what's left of the republican party moving on to more palatable but just as destructive candidates is mine as well. And it could well happen if the evidence against Trump results in an indictment making him ineligible to run for office. While I'd like to see him in prison orange and shackles as much as anyone, I think I'd almost rather see the republican party, as it's currently comprised, loaded down with Trump as a loose cannon and an albatross.