Satire: How Republicans Now Remember 1/6

By Laurie Baron, Ph.D

SAN DIEGO — Kevin McCarthy opposes the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate what happened on January 6, 2021.  After all, many in his caucus contend that 1/6 wasn’t really so bad and shouldn’t be studied in isolation from other instances of civil disorder.

Steve Scalise complained that the proposed Commission is too limited because it “cannot investigate the political violence leading up to and following the attack on the 6th, including the June 2017 shooting at the Republican Congressional baseball practice” in which Scalise was shot.  His concerns hearken back to conservative criticism of the Warren Commission investigation of the Kennedy Assassination for not examining the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley.

Mike Pence’s brother Greg condemned Nancy Pelosi for “pushing her version of partisan justice to carry out her pre-determined political execution of Donald Trump.” He apparently believes that the video of the 1/6 rioters shouting “Hang Mike Pence” is a deep fake which deleted what they really wanted to do;-namely to “hang out with Mike Pence.” Or perhaps they were merely engaging in a little gallows humor.

Andrew Clyde claimed that “if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.” Yes, Capitol tourists are notorious for banging down doors, breaking windows, attacking the Capitol police, and reversing election results.

During the storming of the Capitol, Kevin McCarthy phoned Trump urging him to denounce the mob and Trump responded by telling him, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” McCarthy now recalls the event differently: “he ended the call by telling me, he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that’s what he did, he put a video out later.” McCarthy neglected to mention that he heard someone playing a fiddle in the Oval Office during the call.

Paul Gosar believes that 1/6 exhibited “all the hallmarks of an Antifa provocation.”  Ron Johnson shares this suspicion. It is well known that members of Antifa wear MAGA hats, carry pro-Trump signs, wave Confederate flags, and sought to prevent Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden because they had so much fun being arrested, beaten, and gassed by the federal agents Trump dispatched to suppress them last summer.

With these facts at their disposal, it is no wonder that those opposed to a 1/6 commission find Liz Cheney’s recent tweet laughable: “What happened that day must never happen again. I urge the Senate to pass the bipartisan 1/6 commission bill. Some things must be above politics.”
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. San Diego Jewish World points out to new readers that this column is satire, and nothing herein should be taken literally.