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The case against Trump's big lie
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here. A Quick Take to start off your week, and I wanted to talk about the January 6th committee with its televised hearings starting last Thursday and proceeding throughout the week and showing just how incredibly divided and dysfunctional the American political system is.
It's very clear from the initial proceedings that former President Trump was indeed, is indeed responsible for pushing a lie around the big steal, the elections going against him, that he tried to use every lever of power available to him, legal and extralegal, in office to overturn. And when that did not happen, was central to the demonstrations that occurred on the 6th of January. And when they turned out to be violent and had the potential to be much more brutally dangerous to the Senate, to the House of Representatives, to Vice President Pence, rather than call for them to be over, he put fuel on the flames. So I think, from my perspective, it's very clear that Trump has accountability there.
It's also very clear to me that the impact of the January 6th committee politically in the United States will be next to zero, that the process is broken and is functionally partisan in a way that both of the impeachments of Trump, unprecedented two impeachments of President Trump, and of course, no convictions, have also become politically broken and polarized.
Now, when I say partisan, I want to be clear that there are liberals and conservatives, the entire political spectrum is represented in the committee. Liz Cheney is taking the lead in a lot of the public presentation, and she's a committed conservative who votes with the Republican Party, some 90% of the time. So, I mean, from a policy and an ideological perspective, you're covering the map, but of course that's not what drives partisanship in the United States today, it's more about orientation to President Trump, and this is a deeply partisan anti-Trump group. There is not an effort to defend Trump. There are no Republican participants that are trying to present a, "what he did wasn't that bad. It wasn't really about him. There were real things to worry about, to be concerned..." No, no, none of that is going forward, in part because it's a difficult argument to make, but in part, because the leadership of the Republican party sees that there is no political advantage to them and they care more about that than they do about the stability of American political institutions. And so that's what's really driving the outcome here.
And again, it's important for me, at least as someone who considers myself not to have much of an ideological lens. I mean, I'm sort of overall a centrist. I'm probably much more liberal on social issues. I'm more conservative on economic issues. But the specific issue matters. The American political spectrum is itself very narrow. I tend to have a more global perspective on some issues than a lot of people in the American political framework do. But most importantly, I mean, I think that my antipathy to Trump as a human being has nothing to do with him being a Republican. I mean, I was just as opposed to him as a human being when he was a Democrat. He doesn't have any ideological attachment to a political party. They're just vessels for him to exploit his narcissism. And he's now a Republican. He was a Democrat. He was equally unfit for political office with either affiliation, but this is a big problem for the United States, obviously. We are fortunate in that Trump's most important quality in the way he really differs from other political leaders is his incompetence.
Yes, he's authoritarian in the sense that he doesn't believe in democracy, but he didn't actually try to systematically undermine checks and balances that limited the president's power when he was president. I mean, remember he was president in the middle of a pandemic. Anyone that really was an authoritarian would use that to declare a state of emergency and try to gain an enormous amount of power as president. He wasn't interested in that. He didn't want to work. Instead he said, "No, it's all about the governors. It's all about the mayors. Those guys are in charge. I'm not in charge. I don't want to do that." And in fact, the one person that was most aligned towards building an authoritarian US and undermining checks and balances was his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who was the first senior official he fired when he became president. So it's obvious that his authoritarianism is kind of more of a flirtation than it is something that he's particularly committed to.
And his corruption is he wants to make a lot of money, but it wasn't structural or strategic corruption. It wasn't like let's use and exploit the position of the presidency to make hundreds of billions of dollars. It was more just continuing to find ways to skim a little here and skim a little there. The rules of taxation don't really apply to him, and "I just got a bunch of gifts from foreign governments and I'll keep them as opposed to giving them back even though that's the rule, because the rules don't apply to me. And Ivanka gets some licenses to sell shoes and purses in China, while she also has a political position in the White House, and I don't care if that's a conflict of interest. I'm just going to avoid and ignore it." I mean, yes, there's corruption, but this is not the kind of systemic and structural corruption that you see in a country like Russia or a country like China, or frankly, even many mid-level mid-tier emerging markets, Turkey, for example. No, this was small stuff.
No, the thing that Trump truly excelled at compared to any other former president is the level of incompetence. And that meant despite the fact that he was president and desperately wanted to continue to be president, he had very little willingness to build a strategy to align people around him that could support and implement that strategy to structurally undermine the institutions of the United States. And that ultimately is one of the reasons why January 6th, as ugly as it was, was not particularly effective and was more of a clown show than it was a real threat to the integrity of US elections going forward.
Now, I still believe that this is a huge problem for the US politically because the country is so divided. The fact that you have the Democrats and a couple of Republicans who can't stand Trump, working as hard as they can to make this the cause for the 2024 election, and meanwhile, Fox News doesn't even cover it. And Tucker Carlson doesn't run commercials because he doesn't want people channel surfing and flipping over. Meanwhile, the average American only cares if their priors were already committed to the cause of anti-Trump. Inflation matters a lot more to most Americans than the result of the January 6th committee.
And I've seen this, I've gotten so many comments from intelligent viewers and listeners of my show and of my posts on social media saying, "Why should I care about this spectacle in Congress, as opposed to the gas price, which I feel every day, which costs me out of my paycheck? And this notion of democracy, and the US doesn't have political leaders that I trust and they're all out for themselves anyway. They're just going to screw me. And if the US doesn't stand for anything but its rich and powerful people, why should I pay attention to yet more of that show?" And the very fact that President Biden today is that lower approval levels than President Trump was at this point in his presidency is a very, very stark reminder of just how dysfunctional, divided and broken the American representative political system today is.
Now there's upside, and the upside is that through all of this, I don't see Fox actively trying to defend Trump. They're just not focusing on the issue at all. And I do believe that there is a growing likelihood that both Biden and Trump face significant primary challenges in the 2024 election. And ultimately, that perhaps is the biggest silver lining because that would be profoundly good for the United States, frankly, to get rid of a Biden that would be 86 by the end of his second term if he were to run again and win, and Trump who is obviously unfit for the presidency of the United States.
I mean, if there were successful Democratic and Republican primary challenges to both of them, we would be in a much better position as a country. But for right now where we are left is a January 6th committee that obviously reflects accountability and responsibility for crimes in office of President Trump that will once again be ignored because the political system is being driven only by what's in the interest of one party versus the other party. And at the same time, we have, whether it's the Supreme Court that's behind, it feels like it's a fortress right now behind all of these fences, whether my friend, Chris Coons, who says that we're facing a season of political violence. The Southern Poverty Law Center that just came out with a nationwide survey that has almost a majority, some 35, 40% of Americans, slightly more Republicans, slightly less Democrats, but unprecedentedly high for both saying that they would support revolutionary movements even if they call for political violence if they align with their interests.
This is a very dangerous time for the Americans not to care about rule of law, not to care about fundamental precepts of what makes legitimate political institutions, to tune that out and say, "No, that's not what I'm going to spend my time focusing on." In part because we've let these institutions erode for 30, 40 years now, and it hasn't affected the average Americans very much, but of course that's true until it isn't anymore. So, I mean, I've been spending a lot more time focusing on Russia/Ukraine, because it has massive impact on the global economy and because it's a war in Europe, and because it's also a topic I know very well. But on the back of the January 6th committee and everything we've seen the last week and also being in DC a bit last week, I thought I'd spent a little bit of time talking about that with you today.
I hope everyone's well, I'll talk to you soon.
For more of Ian Bremmer's weekly analyses, subscribe to his GZERO World newsletter at ianbremmer.bulletin.com- What We're Watching: Jan 6. hearings begin, Beijing's Zero bet ... ›
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US political violence increases; Democrats seek Jan 6 accountability
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares his perspective on US politics:
What was the biggest takeaway from the first January 6th hearing?
The House Committee investigating the January 6th riot at the Capitol hosted its first hearing last night. And while a major focus of the committee is making the case for the criminal culpability of former President, Donald Trump, for his role in instigating the riots, much of the facts revealed last night were already well known through leaks from the committee and are unlikely to change any minds for either supporters or detractors of the former president.
The committee also spent significant resources uncovering a connection between two nationalist groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, in their role in deliberately stoking violence that day. The committee showed video evidence that group members coordinated in advance to attack the Capitol and disrupt the certification of a completely valid election. And they were egged on by Donald Trump's appearance at the White House that morning. The existence of these nationalist groups and their ability to organize online is going to be an ongoing challenge in the United States, which is starting to see elevated levels of political division and outright political violence.
While political violence was relatively common in the 1960s and 1970s, the trend had subsided for several decades before an uptick in recent years, both in the form of lone-wolf attacks and less successful group plots. The January 6th riot was the most high profile, explosive and important example of this trend, which has included assassination attempts against policymakers and judges, violent protests over police violence across the country in 2020, a mass assassination attempt at a Congressional baseball practice in 2017, a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a violent standoff between federal agents and militia members in Oregon in 2016, the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, and just this week, a barely thwarted attempt to kill Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh at his home.
Polling shows Americans are increasingly open to the idea of political violence, with one in four saying it is sometimes okay in early 2022. Other studies suggest these results may overstate the actual level of support for political violence. Though, as was the case in the 1960s, it only takes one successful lone-wolf willing to commit epoch-defining political violence, such as the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King in the 1960s.
So while one key goal of the committee is to keep the violence of January 6th and the Republican Party's connection to it on top of mind for voters as Democrats face a very challenging political environment in November, equally important will be holding these groups accountable for their role in trying to disrupt the democratic transition of power, and demonstrating to Republicans, who continue to play down the violence of that day, that this is a serious threat to the security of the United States that must be met with condemnation and potentially reforms to make sure it can't happen again.
Pro-Trump rioters storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
What We’re Watching: Jan 6. hearings begin, Beijing’s Zero bet & Somalia famine warning
House holds first public Jan. 6 hearing in prime time
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol held its first public hearing on Thursday night, with most news channels airing it in prime time (notably not Fox News). Viewers were shown graphic, never-before-seen footage to demonstrate how, as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said, former President Donald Trump “lit the flame of this attack.” The hearing aired revelatory clips of testimony from former US Attorney General William Barr, who told Trump that claims about a stolen election were “bullshit,” and from Trump's daughter Ivanka, who said she’d accepted Barr’s perspective. And some participants in the attack testified that they were on hand because Trump had asked them to be there in Washington, DC, on that day. Will the hearings change hearts or minds? Unlikely in such a polarized environment, but Eurasia Group’s lead US analyst Jon Lieber says Democrats hope the hearings will help keep the focus on Trump ahead of November’s midterm elections, which are slated to be a washout for Democrats. Republicans, for their part, would rather make midterms a referendum on President Joe Biden and kitchen-table issues like inflation. The hearings — a culmination of one of the Justice Department’s largest-ever FBI investigations, which has led to more than 800 arrests across nearly all 50 states — will continue next week.
China doubles down on Zero
Beijing has reportedly ordered regional and city governments to begin building additional hospitals and COVID-19 quarantine facilities. Experts say the decision shows China is furthering its commitment to zero-COVID, despite the massive social and economic disruptions the policy entails. In Shanghai, residents were largely trapped in their homes for more than two months. Although the government declared victory against the virus and lifted restrictions there earlier this month, sections of the city have already been ordered to resume lockdowns and mass testing again. Public health experts doubt the policy can be maintained successfully, given the transmissibility of the omicron-related variants. But low vaccination rates among the elderly, questions about vaccine efficacy, and a political attachment to proving that zero-COVID can work have compelled President Xi Jinping to double down on the policy, particularly as he heads for “re-election” at a Party Congress this fall.
Somalia’s new president issues dire warning
Somalia’s newly tapped President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was inaugurated on Thursday, and his message to the international community was clear: help us stave off a dire famine. East Africa has long been plagued by a terrible drought that's decimated crops, and Mohamud’s plea comes as the United Nations warned this week that more than 200,000 Somalis are on the brink of starvation. Indeed, Mohamud – a former academic who served as president from 2012-2017 – says he will foster “political stability” in the notoriously volatile country. He has his work cut out for him: Al-Shabab, a jihadist militant group linked to al-Qaida, has long wreaked havoc there, including during the recent vote, and controls swaths of the country. The deteriorating security situation recently prompted the Biden administration to return US troops to Somalia two years after then-President Donald Trump withdrew nearly all of the 700 US troops stationed there.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that vaccination rates in China are low. In fact, it is the vaccination rate among China's elderly that is low -- fewer than half of Chinese over 70 are fully vaccinated and boosted.
Democrats hope to use Jan 6 Trump focus to gain edge in midterms
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares his perspective on US politics:
What role will the January 6 riots play in the midterm elections?
This week there was another round of primaries that continue to show good news for Republicans as they are looking to take over Congress in November's midterm elections. Although issues like gun control and abortion continue to take up some political space, inflation and the economy remain the number one issue for voters and the data here is not good for President Biden. Inflation remains high at around 8% and the Federal Reserve has indicated that it's willing to raise interest rates until it has inflation under control, which could result in economic slowdown sometime later this year or early next year. This is a big drag for President Biden whose approval ratings remain low and as a result, polls show a strong advantage for Republicans in the midterm elections.
So far, this has showed up in primary turnout. Turnout among Republicans in primaries is up around one-third relative to the last midterm election while it is roughly flat for Democrats. This may not be as bad as it sounds since the last midterms were a wave election for Democrats, so sustaining the high level of engagement they had in 2018 is not necessarily a bad thing given the headwinds that they face this year.
One thing Democrats are hoping to do is to turn the midterm election away from being a referendum on current President Joe Biden and keep the focus on former President Donald Trump, who remains the most popular person in the Republican Party and continues to play a role in Republican primaries.
The primaries so far have really been a mixed bag for him. Several candidates he endorsed have come from behind to win, but few have managed to capture outright majorities of Republican electorate and he's had several high-profile rebukes including this week when across the country, several more conservative Republican candidates failed to beat moderate Republicans in primaries in California and elsewhere.
One of the tactics Democrats are using to keep the focus on Donald Trump is the January 6th commission, which will kick off a series of hearings this week that will last until September with a public hearing in prime time this Thursday. The commission is charged with investigating the attack on the Capitol that happened in the wake of the 2020 election. President Trump had a clear role in agitating the crowd that day and some on the committee argued that his role in attempting to disrupt the transfer of power was a criminal act.
The hearing organizers say they will be unearthing new facts about what wrong last January and they've been leaking for months information on President Trump's role in stoking the riots. The hearings will also focus on the role of outside organizer who planned the riots and on policing failures by the Capitol and DC police that day.
There's a clear political undertone to all of this. Many of the facts unveiled at the hearing are already well known and will land in a very polarized atmosphere. This could change, but it seems like there's very little momentum for legislative reforms at the moment to prevent this from happening again and building momentum would require a significant internal effort that has nothing to do with rallying the public which is what these hearings are ostensibly about. By stretching them out over several months, Democrats hope they will be able to sustain media attention on something other than inflation.
Thanks for watching. This has been US Politics In (a little over) 60 Seconds.
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