“They’re getting away with it all!”
The DOJ is now bringing 1/6 conspiracy charges against multiple Oath Keepers. This opens the door to also charging the 1/6 ringleaders and planners with conspiracy. Don’t let pundits tell you “nothing is being done.” The DOJ probe is advancing in the way that such probes work.
“Why isn’t it moving faster?” Because that’s not how these kinds of complex probes work. As we see by the ongoing arrests of people who played progressively more important roles in the attack, these things work from the bottom up, but they get there eventually.
“Why didn’t they start by indicting people at the top?” Because you need to indict and flip the people below them first, in order to get charges against the people at the top to stick.
“But why don’t they just arrest the insurrectionist House Republicans right now?” Because their words on camera alone won’t be enough to get any jury to convict them. They’d be acquitted, and then we’d have a far bigger problem. You need to produce cooperating witnesses against them first, if you want to truly take them down.
“But I find all of this unacceptable!” That’s irrelevant. The criminal justice process works in a certain way, and that doesn’t change just because you don’t find it acceptable or don’t understand it.
“But our democracy is five minutes away from total collapse unless someone is arrested right now!” No it’s not. For your own sake, stop listening to TV pundits and Twitter pundits who use this crap to scare you into staying tuned in.
“But the 1/6 investigation died in the Senate, now everyone will go free!” No. The ongoing DOJ criminal investigation has nothing to do with any congressional fact finding commission. Also, Pelosi is about to appoint a 1/6 select congressional probe anyway.
“But we’re all doomed without a Special Counsel!” No. A Special Counsel is only appointed as a stopgap when the DOJ has such a conflict of interest that it can’t investigate a case. That’s not the case here. And Special Counsels don’t have magic powers. The DOJ has got this.
“But the 1/6 attack was a test run for…” No it wasn’t. 1/6 was them blowing their wad. They wasted the element of surprise. Now everyone is ready for it, if they try it again. Also, 1/6 was pure idiocy. It wouldn’t have magically kept Trump in power even if it had been deadlier.
“But I’m certain I should be panicking right now, even if I don’t know why!” That’s the whole problem. Panicked hysteria is never your friend. You have to tune out the pundits who try to use panic to string you along for attention, ratings and retweets.
“But Josh Hawley has used his role in the insurrection to vault himself into frontrunner status in 2024!” No. Hawley is currently polling at 0% in the 2024 republican primary race for president. The insurrection destroyed his political ambitions, not the other way around.
“But Marjorie Taylor Greene…” …has no future in politics. In fact, Greene’s antics are only helping the Democrats’ odds of keeping the majority in 2022. Voters in the middle hate the kind of behavior that Greene is displaying. It causes them to vote for the other party.
“But Matt Gaetz is getting away with it all!” No he’s not. Two key witnesses just started cooperating against him. It takes time to sort out their testimony and evidence and put it in front of the grand jury. Gaetz isn’t helping himself any by running his mouth in the meantime.
“But Rudy Giuliani didn’t get arrested, so he’s getting away with it all!” Nope. The judge just ruled that attorney-client privilege with Trump won’t protect Rudy, and appointed a special master to separate out his incriminating emails to give to prosecutors. Rudy is losing.
“But Trump has gotten away with it all!” No. Based on where the process is, he now has a literally 99% chance of being indicted in 2021, on the kinds of financial charges that result in near automatic conviction. His life is over. That’s before getting to any federal charges.
Also, 1/6 permanently took away Trump’s voice, put hundreds of his most influential supporters in prison, and finally made the American mainstream realize that Trumpism was the pure deranged thuggery that we always tried to warn them it was.
