Between the Roe decision leak and Trump-backed candidates prevailing in their GOP primaries, this week drove home how Trump and his allies will stop at nothing to threaten our basic freedoms in order to push forward their “extreme,” “ultra-MAGA” agenda, including perpetuating lies about the election. Below are main points to keep in mind as we head into the weekend.
Main Points for the Weekend:
The MAGA Primary Winners Want to Take Away Our Freedom to Pick Our Own Leaders: All 22 Trump-endorsed candidates won their primaries in Indiana and Ohio this week, including MAGA Republican J.D. Vance for the Ohio Senate. These candidates push Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and are a threat to future elections and our freedom to choose our own leaders.
Top Point to Make:
- If you try to overturn elections or refuse to accept their outcomes, like the legitimate election of President Biden, you can’t be allowed to represent us.
If you read one thing: “J.D. Vance Is a Dangerous Authoritarian. The only coherent aspect of his worldview is a lust for power.” Jonathan Chait, May 4, 2022, New York Magazine:
“Politicians who wish to defend democracy ought to draw a line at supporting allies who pose a threat to democracy. J.D. Vance is an authoritarian. Granted, this charge is difficult to prove without first handing him power, but the authoritarian nature of his beliefs is established as clearly as it can be without a pile of corpses.”
President Biden Calls MAGA the “Most Extreme Political Organization” in Recent American History. During a speech on the economy, President Biden called out the right’s ultra-MAGA agenda, calling them the most political organization in recent U.S. history.
Top Point to Make:
- President Biden is right. Not only is the MAGA right set on taking away our freedoms and furthering their own extreme agenda, they are willing to overturn an election to do so.
If you read one thing: Biden: MAGA is the ‘most extreme political organization’ in recent U.S. history. CNN, May 4, 2022:
“‘This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history, in recent American history,’ Biden told reporters at the White House, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
“…‘Senator Rick Scott of Florida … released what he calls the ultra-MAGA agenda. It’s a MAGA agenda all right,’ Biden said. ‘Let me tell you about this ultra-MAGA agenda. It’s extreme, as most MAGA things are.’”
Courts Continue to Rule In Favor of Jan 6 Select Committee and Against the Ongoing MAGA Coverup of the Truth About the Attack on Our Country: Federal judges, including Trump appointed judges continued to rule this week against the effort to cover up the facts surrounding January 6th. The court rejected The Republican National Committee argument that the January 6th Select Committee investigation is invalid, and ordered the release of documents they tried to hide.
Top Points to Make:
- Trump and his allies have obstructed the January 6th investigation and refused to testify and turn over evidence. They continue to try and cover up the plot and their involvement in it.
- They must be held accountable in the courts and stopped at the ballot box so we protect the rule of law and Americans’ right to choose their own leaders.
If you read one thing: “Judge issues big rebuke of GOP effort to delegitimize Jan. 6 committee,” Aaron Blake, May 2, 2022, The Fix / Washington Post:
“In his ruling, the judge — an appointee of President Donald Trump, no less — validated the Jan. 6 committee’s aims, thereby helping its efforts to gather information and testimony. Some have cast it as a “landmark” ruling that could be cited in other cases. It also contains some notable rebuttals of the RNC, and of broader GOP efforts to cast the committee as an illegitimate witch hunt…
“the ruling, which allows the committee to access data related to the RNC’s mass emails suggesting that the 2020 election was illegitimate, could also open the door to yet more…
“The judge’s ruling surely won’t stop the GOP from making a political argument that the committee is a fishing expedition — something the party set the stage for by withdrawing from the committee altogether — but it does mean that claim has now been rejected in at least one crucial context, and by a Trump appointee at that.”
The Leaked Roe Decision Is One Part of the MAGA Attack On Our Rights: The leaked draft opinion overturning Roe raises the broader question, as President Biden noted: “What are the next things that are going to be attacked? Because this MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history — in recent American history.”
Top Points to Make:
- The Roe vs. Wade draft opinion shows the lengths MAGA extremists will go to in order to roll back the clock on hard-won rights. They won’t stop with abortion.
- And they are engaged in an ongoing plot to put themselves in power regardless of the outcome of an election.
If you read one thing: “Letters from an American.” Heather Cox Richardson, May 2, 2022 on Substack:
“And so here we are. A minority, placed in control of the U.S. Supreme Court by a president who received a minority of the popular vote and then, when he lost reelection, tried to overturn our democracy, is explicitly taking away a constitutional right that has been protected for fifty years. Its attack on federal protection of civil rights applies not just to abortion, but to all the protections put in place since World War II: the right to use birth control, marry whomever you wish, live in desegregated spaces, and so on.
“The draft opinion says the state legislatures are the true heart of our democracy and that they alone should determine abortion laws in the states. But Republican-dominated legislatures have also curtailed the right to vote. When Democrats in Congress tried to protect voting rights, Senate Republicans killed it with the filibuster. Tonight’s news is an alarm like the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which gave a few white men who controlled state legislatures power over the American majority.”
What the Experts are Saying:
- (Video) Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University, joins Rachael Maddow to talk about Why A ‘Big Lie’ Is So Powerful And So Hard To Undo. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show:
“Hitler says, if you tell a lie that’s of a certain scale – that’s big enough – people won’t believe that you could deceive them on that scale. And since they believe what they’ve taken in first, they don’t want to disbelieve it later on. It becomes part of their life, becomes part of what we now call an “alternative reality.” It begins to shape politics.”
- Norm Eisen, author of Overcoming Trumpery: How to Restore Ethics, the Rule of Law, and Democracy. Washington Post:
“That’s different from anything we’ve seen in U.S. history — even with the most corrupt presidents — because Trumpery rejects the core principles that make us a democratic republic and instead moves us towards autocracy.
The logical culmination of four years of Trumpery was his attempted coup to stay in power, and instead of backing away from that “big lie”-driven criminal conspiracy, many in the GOP have embraced Trumpery, and many more tolerate it. Indeed, adherents like Gov. Ron DeSantis [Fla.], Sen. Josh Hawley [R-Mo.] or Congressman Jim Jordan [R-Ohio] are taking it to new depths.”
- Dan Pfeiffer, from “Running Against MAGA Extremism” on May 5, 2022 in Substack:
“Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stated that one of his first acts as Speaker would be to shut down the investigation into the January 6th insurrection, but that investigation is supported by two-thirds of Americans. Florida Senator Rick Scott, the Republican in charge of electing senators (and Donald Trump’s choice to replace Mitch McConnell were he to fall into a barrel of garlic), recently proposed taxing everyone who does not currently pay income tax — a group made up of retirees and the working poor. This is supported by only a third of voters.
On issue after issue, Republicans choose to adopt extreme positions. Not only are these positions unpopular and outside of mainstream American values, they are also disconnected from the issues that demand focus.”
