Move on
from 2020
Donald Trump went too far this past weekend at a rally in Texas when he said that, if he wins a second presidential term in 2024, he might pardon the people who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
As his successor Joe Biden might respond: Come on, man.
Whatever you may think of the motivations of people who went to the Capitol that day, several hundred of them barged past barricades, pushed past an outmanned group of officers, smashed windows to get into the building and disrupted a session of Congress. They broke the law, and they are rightly being held accountable.
Anyone who supports a pardon for these lawbreakers also in theory supports a pardon for the protesters during the summer of 2020 who caused damage in cities across America. They too should be held accountable, though too few of them actually have been.
But more important for the Republican road ahead, the former president is making a gigantic tactical error when he keeps harping about the 2020 election.
Everyone gets that a man who built his brand on always winning would have a hard time accepting such a defeat. But no court that has heard a lawsuit about the election, at either the state or the federal level, has agreed with Trump.
It begs the question of whether Democratic operatives really are slick enough to tilt the election results in six states. Because their performance since taking over the White House and Congress a year ago indicates otherwise.
This is the conundrum Republicans face. Democrats are dealing with inflation and a perception that nothing’s going right. The GOP is poised to do very well this November — but the party’s leader won’t stop talking about an election whose results cannot be changed.
It thus falls to Henry Olsen, a conservative columnist on The Washington Post website, to present a wise idea. He believes that Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, is the right man to take a stand against the 2020 obsession.
“His courage while under immense pressure from Trump last year was laudatory, and his courage during and after the riot was immeasurable,” Olsen wrote. “As the person under direct attack from Trump, he is also the natural person to rebut Trump’s false claims.”
Olsen believes Pence should tell Republicans that a vice president counting electoral votes does not have sole authority to disregard the results that states sent in for Jan. 6. No one who believes in the rule of law should think otherwise.
“Sometimes one must courageously accept one’s fate,” Olsen added. “Pence has two choices in his life: Shrink into private life entirely or someday meet his fate as the man with the conviction and stature needed to engage with Trump in this battle. That political and personal cup will not pass, no matter how fervently he might pray that it does.
“We already know that Trump thinks Pence was a coward on Jan. 6. What better rebuke than to show courage when it is least expected and take the battle home to the bully.”
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
