The problem for Republicans is how many of them, then and now, went along with Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy for his own benefit. Former President Richard Nixon only wanted to bug the Democrats, to spy on the other side. Trump, lest we forget, wanted to steal the election. When it became plain, and it did rather quickly as court after court rebuked him, that the effort to install Trump for a second term was an effort to undermine the Constitution, Republican participation should have ended. That it did not, that some Republicans continued to plan and to plot, to lie and mislead, is wrong. That is what the committee wants to talk to these Republicans about.
McCarthy has attempted to dismiss the investigation as politics as usual. Not so. Politics as usual is about conceding gracefully when you lose, putting the interest of the country ahead of your partisan pain and getting on with it.
Getting on with it, with defeat and the transition, and supporting the legitimacy of the victor, is precisely what these Republicans did not do. The five were subpoenaed because they refused to speak to their colleagues voluntarily. They will no doubt fight the subpoenas, claiming — as have others who have gone before them, without success so far — that the committee is not legitimate because the Republican leader withdrew his nominees. So what? Only two Republicans serve on the committee because the Republicans in the House are a collection of gutless wonders who were afraid to investigate how it was that the Capitol was invaded, the lives of our leaders put at risk and the process of democracy shut down.
All politics? If that’s how the Republicans insist on seeing it, then they are about to witness themselves hoisted on their own petard. A month ago, with inflation and gas prices skyrocketing to the point that they overtook even a war and a pandemic among public concerns, it seemed the president and the Democrats were doomed to a disastrous midterm. But leave it to the Washington Republicans to find ways to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
