Eugene Robinson/WaPo:
If the GOP is to rise from the ashes, it has to burn first
Before a sane, responsible political party can rise like a phoenix from the ashes of today's dangerously unhinged GOP, there must be ashes to rise from. The nation is going to have to destroy the Republican Party to save it.
Yahoo:
Yahoo News/YouGov poll: More than two-thirds of Americans side with Biden on COVID relief — and most support the rest of his agenda
When asked about the 20 policies that define President Biden’s agenda, more Americans support than oppose all 20 of them, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
The margins are decisive. The majority of Biden’s proposals garner at least twice as much support as opposition. Nearly half are favored by more than 60 percent of Americans.
Axios:
Inside the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency
Byrne, backing up Flynn, told Trump the White House lawyers didn't care about him and were being obstructive. "Sir, we're both entrepreneurs, and we both built businesses," the former Overstock CEO told Trump. "We know that there are times you have to be creative and take different steps."
This was a remarkable level of personal familiarity, given it was the first time Byrne had met the president. All the stanchions and buffers between the White House and the outside world had crumbled.
Byrne kept attacking the senior White House staff in front of Trump. "They've already abandoned you," he told the president aggressively. Periodically during the meeting Flynn or Byrne challenged Trump's top staff — portraying them as disloyal: So do you think the president won or not?
At one point, with Flynn shouting, Byrne raised his hand to talk. He stood up and turned around to face Herschmann. "You're a quitter," he said. "You've been interfering with everything. You've been cutting us off."
"Do you even know who the fuck I am, you idiot?" Herschmann snapped back.
"Yeah, you're Patrick Cipollone," Byrne said.
"Wrong! Wrong, you idiot!"
The above is a must read.
WaPo:
Poor handling of virus cost Trump his reelection, campaign autopsy finds
The 27-page document shows that voters in 10 key states rated the pandemic as their top voting issue, and President Biden won higher marks on the topic. The report also indicates that Trump lost ground among key demographic groups he needed.
The internal report cuts against Trump’s claims that the election was stolen from him and that Biden could not have fairly beaten him — and mirrors what many Trump campaign officials said privately for months.
The analysis by Fabrizio, a Florida pollster who has worked for Trump for years, was shared among campaign advisers late last year and was provided to The Washington Post on Monday night. Politico first reported on the existence of the document.
HuffPost:
Most Americans Blame Trump For Violence At Capitol Riot: Survey
White evangelicals are an exception, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute.
About 57% of U.S. adults surveyed said Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the violent actions of the rioters, with another 16% saying he bears at least a little responsibility. The survey, published Thursday, found about 25% said the former president is not at all responsible.
White evangelical Protestants, who have been a significant part of Trump’s base, stood apart from other religious groups on this question. Only 23% of white evangelicals said Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the riot, compared to 74% of all Protestants of color who said the same.
Jamelle Bouie/NY Times:
10 Republicans Who Have Compromise Exactly Backward
They have offered up a meager Covid relief plan that is deeply unserious.
In other words, the Republican plan is just the Biden plan except worse — less comprehensive, less ambitious, less generous. And there’s no rhyme or reason to these cuts; it’s just stinginess for stinginess’s sake.
Max Boot/WaPo:
Rob Portman has done more damage to America than Marjorie Taylor Greene
Two very different Republican members of Congress have been in the news recently.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a newly elected member from rural Georgia, has been widely and rightly reviled for her lunatic views. She liked a Facebook post that said the quickest way to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) would be “a bullet to the head.” She has suggested that the Parkland, Fla., mass shooting was a “false flag” operation. She has even posited that California wildfires were started by a space laser controlled by wealthy Jews.
Rob Portman, a long-serving senator from Ohio, is Greene’s antithesis. Over many decades in Washington, he has developed a reputation as a sober and serious policy wonk. His decision to retire next year has been greeted with predictable hand wringing. A Wall Street Journal columnist lamented: “He is a rightly respected figure. He tries to advance serious legislation. He doesn’t spend all his time talking on television.”
Yet if we are to apportion responsibility for the Republican Party’s descent into irrationality and authoritarianism, I would argue that Portman is far more to blame than Greene.
Tim Miller/Bulwark:
Dare Trump to Testify
He should be called out as a coward if he refuses to take the stand in his own defense.
Some of them want to raise process questions, using constitutional mumbo jumbo conjured from the region of Jonathan Turley’s frontal cortex dedicated to maintaining his relevance.
Some of them want to parse the president’s rhetoric. Was it a little too hot or too cold? Didn’t he once use the word “peaceful”? Have there been liberal politicians in the past who have said something vaguely similar to what Trump said that the Democrats now label incitement?
Some of them want to turn the proceedings into a circus. Lindsey Graham suggested calling the QAnon shaman to the stand, and last night on Fox threatened to drag the trial out for months with new witnesses to derail the Biden agenda.
This is the turf where the Republicans think they win. The pedantic. The preposterous. The political gamesmanship.
The turf where they lose? Donald Trump’s actions. His ongoing refusal to own up to his lies.