My friend, who tries to monitor what Fox News is saying, was over to watch the hearing with me last night and convinced me to switch from MSNBC and tune into Fox News for a few minutes after the hearing ended. This is what I learned on The Ingraham Angle where the host was interviewing two GOP members of Congress during the couple of minutes we watched.
One of the guests, Rep. Bryon Donalds (R-FL) said he watched the entire hearing. As he and the other member of Congress smiled and nodded in agreement, the total blame was laid on Nancy Pelosi.
It was revealed in the first portion of the hearing that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were conspiring to attack the Capital, Steve Bannon was predicting it, and Trump himself was encouraging it by telling his followers to fight like hell to take back their country, we now know that there were indications that something really bad, or in Trump’s words, something wild, was going to happen in Washington on January 6th.
What then does Fox News and the Trump bootlickers think Nancy Pelosi should have done?
Of course they hate her with a passion but they think she has a crystal ball and can predict dangerous events before they happen.
With this pre-knowledge she should have made sure that the Capital Police were prepared in advanced to protect the building from being overrun by a mob of insurrectionists.
Nobody brought up that the Capital Police could not have done this alone. This would have taken the kind of protection that thousands of members of law enforcement and 26,000 National Guard troops, plus the physical barriers, used at President Biden’s inauguration provided to assure there was no violence.
The fact that we now know is that the success of the attack on the Capital was predicated on a lot of luck. A few hundred members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers didn’t go to the Trump rally. They headed straight to the Capital. Their plan was to breach the building and stop certification of the election. They had no way of knowing for sure that Trump would have been able to send a few thousand frothing at the mouth minions to help them storm the Capital.
Of course, according to Fox News, Nancy Pelosi with her crystal ball should have been able to see this in advance.
I think we have had a sample of the narrative Fox News and the GOP will be pursuing as the hearings progress. They will point to all the examples of how far-right pro-Trump supporters had worked to organize the attack on pro-Trump on far-right social media websites and they will say that those entrusted to protect the Capital and members of Congress working there should have prevented it. This will be tricky for them. In order to make the blame stick to Democrats they will have to figure out a way to absolve Donald Trump. He incited his minions at the rally to go to the Capital. He did nothing to stop the attack while he gleefully watched it in the Oval Office dinning room. He called the mob peaceful with unbelievable love unlike anything he’d ever seen.
The answer for them is a simple two-parter.
- Blame it all on The Proud Boys and The Oath Keepers. What the Hell, they are disposable and have no significant constituency.
- Say Nancy Pelosi should have known in advance and made sure the Capital was protected.
They might just manage to pull it off with those who refuse to open their minds to the truth.
The rabbit in the hat that may emerge in the coming weeks is hard evidence of contacts in advance of January 6th between leaders of The Proud Bays and The Oath Keepers with either Donald Trump and/or his close associates showing that Trump knew in advance that they would be the point of the insurrection spear on January 6th and all Trump had to do was make sure they would have an army to back them up marching from his rally. This could come from the J6 Committee of the Department of Justice. This would be compelling evidence of a conspiracy.
