January 6 and Those Mark Meadows Texts

On today’s episode, our hosts discuss the House’s vote to hold Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s ...

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On today’s episode, our hosts discuss the House’s vote to hold Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, in criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6 Select Committee. Plus, are we taking threats to vote counting seriously enough? Is Jonah right about Omicron? And, is President Biden being unfairly treated by the media?

Show Notes:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Will Roberts

    Also with Steve's comment. Please provide more detail as to how the 9/11 report was flawed. As to Jonah's point that January 6th was the worst attack on the peaceful transfer of power there was the civil war

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  2. Avatar photo
    Will Roberts

    I generally appreciate Sarah's commentary and thoughts. Listening to the Dispatch has helped me embrace more conservative beliefs and values when my background led me to believe the Republican party was not to be trusted. I have always admired the Dispatch for its ability to fairly critique its own side. The Dispatch, even Sarah's commentary, has helped me go a long way to thinking about voting Republican on a regular basis where as before I was an independent that voted for Democrats. But Sarah's comments make me second guess this trend since they seem so of base and not in touch with the political reality.

    I think Sarah is largely off base in her insistence in calling out Nancy Pelosi and saying this is a both sides problem. This is like saying both sides are equally to blame for the violence at Charlottesville. Perhaps that could have been said if no one died. But when one side runs over the other side with a car, while there may be bad actors on both side, the one side murdering the other side with a car outweighs and negates any instigation the anti-racist protestors may have done. It is just so disproportionate that there is no rational way to say both sides are responsible. Same with George Floyd. Did he use counter fit currency? Sure. Was he on drugs? Sure. Did he resist arrest. Somewhat. But that doesn't matter because a police officer put his knee on his neck for multiple minutes till he died. The sins of the one side are simply not relevant to the actions of the other side when the actions of the other side are disproportionately far worse.

    Perhaps Nancy Pelosi was political. Or perhaps she was just pissed off that a crowd of rioters threatened her life and a large majority of Republicans still decided to move forward questioning the vote anyway. Would it have been the politically smart thing to do to sit down with those Republicans she could and draft articles of impeachment they could agree on? Sure. Would that have worked? Maybe. But as mentioned below if some Republicans were serious why didn't Chip Roy lead the charge to draft his own articles of impeachment? Nancy Pelosi would have been a smart poker player to call Republican's bluff and try to draft bipartisan articles. But why would she when she had just been the victim of a strikingly partisan attack? If we were in her shoes would we trust Republicans enough to work with them after a mob spurred on by a President they had unquestionably supported in public for four years threatened her life? I don't think so.

    Such commentary suggests that polarization is equally a problem on both sides and both sides are driving it equally. But it seems the Republican party has far more incentives to be anti-democratic and is far more of a driver of disinformation. The mainstream media is biased. The right wing media is simply disconnected from reality. Left wing extremists riot and destroy property. Right wing extremists plot and blow up buildings. I think the polarization and the threat is skewed to the right. That being said I am unsure of how committed or competent Trump's base is to a violent revolution. As David said there is a significant part of the population that says the election was stolen but when is the next football game on? I know a man who went through the Nigerian civil war and he doesn't believe things are that bad here. While Americans talk a big game about overthrowing the Government I don't get a sense that these fringe militia groups are ready or willing to go to war. The rioters on January 6th didn't actually come to the capitol armed to the teeth with firearms and ready to die. Since the will to do so isn't there I think we might be in for some rough politics, civil unrest, perhaps even a stolen election (by Republicans not by democrats) but I think in the long term things will stabilize. Americans are pretty well off compared to the rest of the world. Event those who are discontent I don't think are willing to throw away their livelihoods and lives for a battle they are unlikely to win.

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  3. Madison P.

    Drinking game for this episode-- take a shot every time someone says the word "stipulate."

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  4. Avatar photo
    Capill717

    I like Sarah. I listen to every AO and love hearing her perspective. But is she not embarrassed to be making such bad arguments about January 6th.? “But Pelosi” is the type of argument I’d expect to hear from a Fox prime time host, not a careful thinker like Sarah.

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  5. Michael Kliegman

    Good discussion, as usual, and thank you, Sarah, for your comments during the January 6 portion, helping to remind me I hadn't accidentally tuned into The Bulwark.

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  6. Randall Briggs

    All in all, a very disappointing podcast. The Dispatch crew, particularly Sarah, seem to be where National Review was as it was shifting from "never Trump" to "anti-anti-Trump."

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  7. GregS

    The thing that really gets me about the Fox News hosts' texts is that Sarah is right about them.
    There is nothing here that is not entirely consistent with the public behavior of these people. The texts are utterly unsurprising.

    Hannity was appearing on stage with Trump at his rallies. Kilmeade's show was a permanent conduit for Trump to proselytize to his base on demand. It is not in the least bit shocking that these people acted as if they were part of the Trump campaign/administration. They had been *openly* a part of it, and had been nakedly amplifying propaganda from Trump for 5 years.

    Conservatives went around decrying "liberal media bias" for decades, and then set your standards for the conservative media so low that this behavior was just par for the course.

    Jonah and Steve could contentedly continue to be a part of Fox News while seeing day in and day out that Fox was acting as a propaganda outlet in a way no media organization with its reach had ever done: a Pravda for America.

    Kudos to them both for eventually leaving, but to act as if you learned something from these texts that you did not already *know* is ridiculous. *We* outside the media universe may have gotten confirmation of what we were almost certain of, but for you this was surely not news.

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  8. Randall Briggs

    Sarah Isgur has turned into a defender of Fox News and, indirectly, Donald Trump. What a surprise!

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  9. Andrew L

    If you're going to have 4-6 ads in the podcast, can you provide a separate ad-free feed for paying members?

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  10. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    This “data” about the nature of coverage sounds pretty specious. Are we counting top 10 reasons why Joe Biden’s pants are stupid with the same weight as Steve’s point about misleading figures around the Afghan withdrawal?

    You guys touched on the real issue here. At one time, stuff about Kamala Harris’ headphones would exist in the grocery checkout line next to David Haselhoff is a reptilian secret agent. Never mind the detestable “Here’s ten random Tweets that agree with whatever narrative I want to pitch, therefore it’s real” dreck.

    Serious journalism is being conflated with and drowned out by lazy tricks and bogus stunts and the proprietors of this intellectual flatulence are guarding the gates of serious debate like drunk jocks keeping nerdy kids out of the boys’ bathroom.

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