;)
January 6, 2022
Late Morning Update:
The Washington Post's live updates of events related to the commemoration of last year's insurrection are here.
** Mary Jalonick, et al., of the AP: “President Joe Biden on Thursday forcefully condemned Donald Trump’s election 'big lie' that sparked the deadly breach of the Capitol by his supporters and continues to motivate deep national division. He marked the anniversary of the insurrection by declaring he will stand and fight for 'the soul of America.' Biden’s criticism was blistering of the 'defeated president' who he blamed for the attack that has fundamentally changed Congress and raised global concerns about the future of American democracy. 'For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,' Biden said. 'But they failed.' His voice booming at times, filling the ornate hall with statues of the country’s leaders and heroes, he said called on Americans to see Jan. 6 for what it was. 'Democracy was attacked,' Biden said at the Capitol. 'We the people endure. We the people prevailed.'” ~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times is live-updating events related to the commemoration of the January 6 insurrection.
Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: “President Biden will squarely blame ... Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and for continuing to propagate falsehoods and unrest over the past year, when he speaks Thursday on the first anniversary of the insurrection. 'President Biden will lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol, the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage that we saw,' White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday. She added that Biden 'has been clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy and how the former president constantly works to undermine basic American values and rule of law.'... Biden and Vice President Harris plan to deliver remarks at 9 a.m. Thursday in Statuary Hall, a marble-filled chamber in the Capitol that was breached by the insurrectionists.”
Katie Benner of the New York Times: “Under pressure from Democrats and a few Republicans to hold ... Donald J. Trump accountable for his role in inspiring the attack on the Capitol, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland [said] on Wednesday..., 'The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.'... Several of the attorney general’s remarks appeared to respond to critics who have urged him to say more about the department’s investigation into what he called 'an unprecedented attack on the seat of our democracy,' and to address whether investigators were scrutinizing Mr. Trump.... Mr. Garland did not mention Mr. Trump or any specific investigation the department might be pursuing.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Video of the AG's speech is here. ~~~
~~~ David Rohde of the New Yorker: “Despite Garland’s attempts to divorce the Justice Department from politically charged prosecutions, it is increasingly clear that investigating Trump is becoming the defining issue of his tenure.... In an era when the majority of Republicans falsely believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent and the majority of Democrats think that it was not, Garland will be demonized no matter what action he takes regarding Trump. The Attorney General, based on his speech, continues to believe that he can restore 'normal order' — a Justice Department term for basing decisions on whether to charge defendants strictly on the facts of a case. He continues to believe that the majority of Americans still support [that] principle.... At the moment, that belief, for Garland and all Americans, is an enormous political gamble.” Firewalled. ~~~
The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. -- Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) in announcing her vote to impeach ...
~~~ Lock Him Up. George Conway in a Washington Post op-ed: “If Garland means what he says, then the investigative road must lead prosecutors to the individual most responsible for the events of Jan. 6:... Donald Trump.... As the pawns meet their fates, the man who led them to try to stop the peaceful, democratic transfer of power remains safe in his Palm Beach palace.... Not only did Trump deceive the mob, but also he directed it.... The Justice Department has plenty of statutory tools available [to charge Trump].... Most notably, it could invoke one of the same provisions it has applied to individual rioters: Title 18, section 1512(c)(2) of the U.S. Code punishes 'whoever corruptly … obstructs … or impedes any official proceeding.' The statute makes clear that an 'official proceeding' includes one 'before the Congress.'... The criminal code provides that whoever 'aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures' the commission of an offense, or 'willfully causes … another' to commit an offense, 'is punishable as a principal,' as though they had directly committed the deed himself.”
** President Jimmy Carter in a New York Times op-ed: "One year ago, a violent mob, guided by unscrupulous politicians, stormed the Capitol and almost succeeded in preventing the democratic transfer of power. All four of us former presidents condemned their actions and affirmed the legitimacy of the 2020 election.... However, one year on, promoters of the lie that the election was stolen have taken over one political party and stoked distrust in our electoral systems.... I now fear that what we have fought so hard to achieve globally — the right to free, fair elections, unhindered by strongman politicians who seek nothing more than to grow their own power — has become dangerously fragile at home.... After I left the White House and founded the Carter Center, we worked to promote free, fair and orderly elections across the globe.... I have also seen how new democratic systems — and sometimes even established ones — can fall to military juntas or power-hungry despots." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ghosts of the Insurrection. Carl Hulse of the New York Times: “The citadel of democracy is almost inaccessible to the public it is supposed to welcome and serve. The Jan. 6, 2021, assault has shaken the foundations of the Capitol, a symbol of American strength and unity, transforming how lawmakers view their surroundings and one another. A dark mood lingers and the scars will be long in healing.... The events of last year have turned everyday spaces in the Capitol into testaments to what transpired.... For [many lawmakers], the ever-present reminders of the attack are the officers who were charged with repelling it as best they could, sustaining serious injuries as they did so.Much of the time, the once-vibrant Capitol seems eerily empty....”
Mike DeBonis & Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: “Ahead of the first anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, several Senate Republicans said they were open to overhauling the presidential vote certification procedure in Congress that was targeted by ... Donald Trump and allies as they sought to overturn his 2020 election loss.... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that changes to Electoral Count Act, the 1887 law governing the congressional certification process, were 'worth discussing,' while several other GOP senators said they were interested in clarifying ambiguous provisions in the statute and potentially raising the threshold for a challenge to a state’s electoral results.... This week’s expressions of support, modest as they are, amount to the most significant Republican backing for modifications to the nation’s democratic infrastructure in response to the stresses of the 2020 election. But top Democrats ... seek to pass a much broader package of election-related legislation. Those bills are aimed at countering new GOP-authored state laws that Democrats say are aimed at making it harder for citizens to vote and easier for legislatures to throw out results they don’t support.” A related Politico story is here. ~~~
~~~ BUT. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: Jiggering with the Electoral Count Act is not enough. "If you are suspicious that Sen. Joe Manchin III is unserious about filibuster reform required to pass essential election reform, you are not alone. With every utterance, the West Virginia Democrat sounds more like he does on the Build Back Better bill — issuing a never-ending stream of objections that are unmoored to political reality and maddeningly vague or contradictory so as to prevent dealmaking.... [Mitch] McConnell knows well that Manchin will take any out when it comes to challenging the filibuster and moving forward with substantive reform.... The ECA covers the election of the president and vice president, so reforming the law would leave every other election at the mercy of Republican partisans.... There are three sets of discrete problems. The first two — election subversion and election suppression — should be resolved through the Freedom to Vote Act (Manchin’s own voting reform bill). The third, the potential for a peaceful presidential coup, requires amendments to the ECA."
Peter Alexander, et al., of NBC News: "Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said she 'cooperated fully' after meeting with the Jan. 6 committee on the eve of the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol.... Grisham has distanced herself from Trump’s orbit since Jan. 6, the day she resigned from the White House in response to the riot."
Brian Schwartz of CNBC: “MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of ... Donald Trump, said his phone records have been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the origins of the deadly riot that took place on Jan. 6.... 'I wasn’t there on January 6th and yes they did subpoena my phone records but we filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the January 6th committee and Verizon to completely invalidate this corrupt subpoena,' Lindell said in a text message to CNBC on Wednesday....”
Alayna Treene of Axios: "People in and around former Vice President Mike Pence's office have been particularly cooperative as the Jan. 6 select committee focuses on what former President Trump was doing during the more than three hours the Capitol was under attack, sources familiar with the testimony tell Axios.... Both Pence's former chief of staff Marc Short, and former press secretary Alyssa Farah, who later served as communications director to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, are among those cooperating with the committee. Keith Kellogg also has given a deposition. One source familiar with their involvement said Short, who was subpoenaed by the committee, would not have cooperated without the approval of Pence."
Kyle Cheney of Politico writes that what the January 6 committee knows, and what the public does not, is the timeline of White House communications. "Precision on the timing and order of these exchanges is crucial. Did Donald Trump receive urgent pleas to call off the rioters before he decided to call [Sen. Tommy] Tuberville [R-Ala.] and ask him to continue challenging the election?"
Mark Your Calendar. Caroline Vakil of the Hill: “Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) will be holding a presser on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, after former President Trump announced that he would be canceling his news conference scheduled for the same day. The two conservative members of Congress are set to hold 'a Republican response on the anniversary of the January 6th protests' on Thursday afternoon, according to a release from Gaetz’s office.”
We have seen how people react when they think that an election has been stolen. They storm the U.S. Capitol. They threaten to kill and hang and shoot election workers. And they called other Americans traitors. The American family cannot stand for that. I will not stand for that. -- Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates (R), Wednesday
~~~ Maricopa County (Arizona) Republicans Refute Trump's Big Lie. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: “The November 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county was administered properly and not marred by fraud, the Republican-led local government concluded in a lengthy report released Wednesday. The 93-page document debunks, one by one, vague allegations of potential problems previously identified by the GOP-led state Senate and championed by ... Donald Trump and his allies. County officials said the blunt rebuttal, released on the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was intended to highlight the ongoing dangers of unfounded claims of mass election fraud.”
Georgia Republicans Cancel “Homage to Treason.” Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: “A Georgia county's Republican Party called off a prayer vigil intended to honor the insurrectionists who tried to help Donald Trump overturn his election loss. The Cobb County GOP canceled its event scheduled for Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, after a barrage of criticism -- which the group called a 'mischaracterization' of their plans, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 'Celebrate freedom,' the invitation read. 'The Patriots are Awake, Willing and Eager to Protect Their American Freedom & Liberties.'”
American Terrorists. Blake Hounshell &
Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: “Everything about [Sean] Hannity’s text messages, part of a trove of documents the House panel received from former chief of staff Mark Meadows after a subpoena, scream one thing: that the prime-time host is not a journalist.... If he really were a journalist, the possible defection of the entire White House Counsel’s Office would have been a world-class scoop. Reporting the news didn’t seem to be on Hannity’s mind.... 'All of us are free to weigh in on public events,' the First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told me in an email Wednesday, 'but when Hannity advised the president about the ongoing insurrection he did not do so as a journalist but as an ally, a confederate, a teammate, rather than an umpire or observer.'... Hannity himself has said on more than one occasion that he doesn’t consider himself a member of the press.... He even appeared onstage with Trump at a rally in 2018 — something so far outside the bounds of journalistic behavior that it earned a mild reprimand from his normally all-forgiving employers at Fox.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: As an expert (Neal Katyal maybe?) said on MSNBC Tuesday, if a reporter happens to see a traffic accident, she -- like anyone else -- is a fact witness. NBC reporter Josh Lederman was one of hundreds of people caught in the Big Snow Jam on I-95 earlier this week. Lederman even reported live from his car; ergo, he was acting as a journalist. But if the state or feds investigate the traffic stoppage (as likely they will [WashPo link]), there's no reason Lederman could not be called as a witness to describe what he observed, experienced (and reported). Similarly, Hannity is a fact witness to what-all was going on in the White House around the January 6 insurrection. As Sullivan notes, even though he was near the center of the biggest attack on a federal facility since the War of 1812, Hannity never reported on what he learned. He was acting as a participant & advisor, not as a journalist, even if, for convenience, he suddenly decides to declare himself a reporter with the protections the First Amendment provides. Indeed, ~~~
~~~ Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: “... Hannity covered up what he knew was happening at the White House.... His work over the course of the Trump presidency, though dressed in the trappings of cable news, was indistinguishable from that of a White House consigliere or propagandist.... The Justice Department ... in July issued fresh protections for journalists from intrusive federal investigative methods, and stipulated that the safeguards are limited to 'members of the news media acting within the scope of newsgathering activities.' That’s a scope within which Hannity rarely acts.”
Oh Noes! I missed Tuesday's biggest story: ~~~
~~~ Kate Bennett of CNN: "Melania Trump announced Tuesday morning that she is holding an auction of the white hat she wore during the visit of the French first family, the Macrons, to the White House in 2018. In a statement from her office, Trump said that, in addition to the hat, the auction lot will include a watercolor by Marc-Antoine Coulon -- a French artist who drew her eyes for her NFT last month -- as well as what the statement defines as 'an exclusive digital artwork NFT with motion.' The NFT, the second Trump has sold in less than a month, features the drawing of the hat with some animation. Trump's office says some of the proceeds will go toward an initiative that is a part of the former first lady's Be Best program, but it's not clear how much will be donated. The centerpiece of the auction, the custom white hat, which Trump has signed, was created for Trump by her personal stylist, Hervé Pierre, to match the $2,105 white crepe Michael Kors Collection suit Trump wore for the daytime ceremonies at the White House attended by Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron.... The three items will have an opening bid of $250,000, and bidding will only be accepted via SOL, a form of cryptocurrency." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. Also to Patrick for his commentary. For some reason, both writers seem to suspect there are scams involved here. See yesterday's Comments.
Ryan Johnson in Medium, republished by Popular Resistance on what he sees is the real reason for the U.S. shipping crisis: "I’m a Class A truck driver with experience in nearly every aspect of freight. Think of going to the port as going to WalMart on Black Friday, but imagine only ONE cashier for thousands of customers. Think about the lines. Except at a port, there are at least THREE lines to get a container in or out. The first line is the ‘in’ gate, where hundreds of trucks daily have to pass through 5–10 available gates. The second line is waiting to pick up your container. The third line is for waiting to get out. For each of these lines the wait time is a minimum of an hour, and I’ve waited up to 8 hours in the first line just to get into the port. Some ports are worse than others, but excessive wait times are not uncommon. It’s a rare day when a driver gets in and out in under two hours." Thanks to Bonnie for the link.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Thursday are here: "More than 4,000 children were hospitalized with covid-19 across the United States on Wednesday, Washington Post figures show, marking a new high that towers above previous peaks set during the summer when the delta variant was driving up infections."
Lena Sun & Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Wednesday that children ages 12 to 17 get a Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine booster, expanding protection to adolescents and teens as surging omicron infections threaten to disrupt schools and workplaces across the country. Director Rochelle Walensky endorsed a recommendation that came several hours earlier from the agency’s vaccine advisory panel that urged the boosters for 10 million young people.... The CDC had previously said 16- and 17-year-olds were eligible for a booster but stopped short of saying they should get them." The story is free to nonsubscribers.
Sailing, Sailing over the Ocean Blue -- in a Petri Dish. Hannah Sampson of the Washington Post: "Coronavirus cases have been reported on every cruise ship sailing with passengers in U.S. waters. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all 92 ships with passengers have met the threshold for investigation by the public health agency."
Australia. Liz Clarke, et al., of the Washington Post: "With a medical exemption to mandatory coronavirus vaccination in hand, [professional tennis star] Novak Djokovic landed at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport shortly before midnight Wednesday, eager to launch preparations for the Australian Open and his pursuit of a record 21st major title....However..., the world’s No. 1 player ...was escorted to a windowless immigration room as authorities reviewed potential irregularities with his visa and questions about the legitimacy of the medical exemption granted by state officials in Victoria that enabled him to enter the tournament. Border authorities then canceled his visa.... By midmorning Thursday, Djokovic, 34..., was transferred to a government-approved hotel pending a flight out of the country. Meanwhile, he engaged lawyers to overturn the decision.... Djokovic has not made known his reasons for seeking an exemption from getting vaccinated.... Djokovic and his team have responded to the past two years of pandemic protocols with a mixture of nonchalance and hostility."
Beyond the Beltway
California. Adela Suliman of the Washington Post: “The Pacific Gas and Electric utility company is to blame for the Dixie Fire, which ravaged swaths of Northern California last summer, after a tree fell on electrical distribution lines that it owns and operates, a state investigation found. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, said in a statement Tuesday that its 'meticulous and thorough investigation' determined the Dixie Fire was caused by a tree contacting PG&E distribution lines west of Cresta Dam. The report has been forwarded to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office, the agency added, which will determine whether criminal charges will be filed.”
Way Beyond
Kazakhstan. New York Times: "Paratroopers from a Russia-led military alliance began arriving in Kazakhstan on Thursday to restore order after a night of protests in the Central Asian country turned violent, with the police reporting that dozens of antigovernment demonstrators had been killed and hundreds injured." The link is to a liveblog.
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Reader Comments (16)
Happy Insurrection Day! Or as it’s known to confederate traitors, “Huh? What? Just peaceful patriots visiting the Capitol”.
Kneeslapper of the day (so far; there’ll be a million of ‘em, as Jimmy Durante used to say): a story from the AP declares “ Hannity, Fox face ethical issues over Trump text revelations!”
Say what? The words “Hannity, Fox”, and “ethical issues” when considered together in a logical statement have a value of zero. So the idea that Hannity or Fox would ever actually face [up to] ethical issues is illogical, an impossible and highly misleading construction.
Neither Hannity nor Fox have, understand, care about, or pretend to care about ethical concerns. They care about power and money and confederate traitors. If “ethical issues” pose even the most eroded and dilapidated speed bump, they are there to be run over. Not faced.
Even human excrement landfill Jeff Zucker, who turned the Fat Fascist into a media star while at NBC, then, at CNN, helped usher him into the White House to destroy democracy by providing live, wall to wall coverage of everything Trump had to say, including whether he did a number one or two when exiting a rest room, during the campaign (complete with breathless analysis of the political implication of each possibility), had to pretend he cared about ethics while firing Chris Cuomo for his close ties with his brother, Governor Groper, after benefiting enormously from those same connections.
Not Fox. And never, in any possible universe, Hannity.
And writing a headline that suggests otherwise is either egregiously misleading or plain daft.
Probably both.
Now that the autocratic cat is out of the Republican bag, Republicans themselves have been justifying their war on democracy with cherry-picked references to some of the Founders' concerns about mob rule, prompted by the French Revolution that was ongoing while they deliberated on the ideal forms of government.
See, some said, that democracy thing in downright dangerous, so we'd better put some impediments in its way, like an Electoral College, institute indirect election of Senators and limit the franchise to wealthy white men.
Now, most of the Founders were smart, classically educated, well-off white guys, who fresh from a revolution against the excesses of a king, naturally wished to somehow thread the political needle and create a government that would reject monarchy while providing comfortable living arrangement for men like themselves.
The irony of your present situation here on Jan. 6--one of the many-- on the one year anniversary of the Insurrection is that the party that now seems bent on moving the country toward some semblance of autocracy is largely composed of precisely the ignorant, uneducated, angry mob--the rabble-- those Founders who had some hesitation about direct democracy were most worried about.
Listening to a real President. Biden is kicking Fatty butt! And calling out the traitors. Go Joe!
Good recommendation from yesterday, Bonnie. From quarantine check-in land, we're running 5-10% covid positives among the larger population. Keeping my head down and face covered....
IS A CIVIL WAR AHEAD:
David Remnick takes this question on in his excellent piece in the New Yorker. He begins his essay as follows:
"The edifice of American exceptionalism has always wobbled on a shoddy foundation of self-delusion and yet most Americans have readily accepted the commonplace that the U.S. is the world's oldest continuous democracy. That serenc assertion has now collapsed."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/is-a-civil-war-ahead
The story of that once First Lady, famous for her "I don't give a fuck" re: Xmas decorations, selling a bloody hat, dress and other do=dads–-money going to charity--so they say––- one can never be sure when it comes to the Trumps. But my question is––-why on earth would anyone want a hat??? And all those pictures? but as soon as I asked that question a little voice said "You dummy! Get with the other picture–– which Patrick and Ak must have given us (I haven't read their comments yet).
Personally, I'd like to stuff her Be Best into that bosom of hers that harbors dark and shoddy waves of deception. I thought once her husband was out of office she'd leave––looks like she's in for the long game.
Melanie also once said she was donating her body to science after
she dies. Science replied that with all that plastic surgery, it would
be more appropriate to donate it to Tupperware Corp.
I'm thinking about selling the watch I was wearing when I met
Mayor Pete. He said "nice watch." Don't have that on record, so
maybe not.
I thought The President did a great job in his 1/6 address, he did not mince words. I was especially pleased to hear him cite TFG's "bruised ego" as a prime reason for the Big Lie Campaign. We often see people say that the autocrats' motives are to "retain power", "destroy democracy", "greed", etc. But with DiJiT it is well to remember that, for him, it's all about him, and only about him, and his ego is the most important thing, the only thing, for him.
How he can persuade millions to also care about his ego is beyond human comprehension. Faustian? Maybe.
I thought Biden's speech was spot on, and one big kick in the Orange Turd's balls (if they could be found).
Statement from President-for-Life Donald Trump in response to remarks by former Vice President Joe Biden on January 6, 2022:
"Sleepy Joe kept talking about the 'former President.' Does he mean Obama? Little Bush? He cannot mean DONALD TRUMP because DONALD TRUMP WON the 2020 election and is the current POTUS."
From the Winter White House, January 6, 2022
Aside: "Now, bring me my crown, Lindsey. Bring me my scepter, Kevin. Bow deeper, Mitch. Deeper!"
I was wondering how the Orange Monster would take Biden’s Fatty philippic. I’m guessing he didn’t listen at all. One of his lackeys probably mentioned that Biden referred to him as the former guy. Had he actually heard what Biden said, he would have flipped his ratty-ass wig thing when he was identified as a “defeated” former president*, aka LOSER.
And he’s still referring to himself in the third person. Whatever happened to the royal we?
and the toadies are croaking. Ron DeSantis has already been moaning about Democrats politicizing 6 January.
Joe Biden really "got his Irish up" today. Most people only get to see one side of him - he's a good politician, after all. But clearly, as a real president, he knew history was urgently calling him to stand up and show his other side to our country and to the world and I loved listening to every second of it!
How the meltdown became an insurrection
"At its core, the January 6th insurrection was the weaponized manifestation of virulent anti-government sentiment in a putatively democratic country where a majority has not trusted its own government for two decades, according to the Pew Research Center polls. That anti-government sentiment on display during last year’s riot wasn’t spontaneous — a quick trip back in time in a flux-capacitor-powered Delorean shows it was cultivated by both politics and reality over the last four decades.
Conservatives tilled this bumper crop of anti-government resentment in soil made fertile by a liberal establishment that was at the time discarding the proven political formula of Franklin Roosevelt. He became the Democratic Party’s most popular president because he understood that delivering economic gains for the working class is not merely good and moral policy, but also the only way to preserve democracy. As he said, a government that refuses to deliver those gains will create a population willing to “sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat”.
Comprehensive research shows that in the last 150 years, such financial crises and weak responses in the industrialized world have almost always been followed by an assault on democracy by right-wing authoritarian movements whose anti-government arguments find even more purchase among voters who blame public institutions for the emergencies."
"... the proven political formula of Franklin Roosevelt ... " included allowing southern democrats to perpetuate white supremacy in return for which they (and some northern republicans) supported social support, investment and development programs (most of the New Deal).
It is not as if FDR had much choice, and he had after all grown up socialized to think of Blacks as inferior.
And that political formula is no longer available. You can still be racist (gosh, where can we find some examples?) but you can't get racists to vote for your progressive programs in return for letting them continue their racist ones.
And for what it's worth, FDR was right to do what he had to.
Democrats politicizing Jan 6th? Wish I could laugh.
See Lindsey Graham has hopped on that train, too.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/politics/lindsey-graham-biden-jan-6-insurrection-speech/index.html
Apparently to these dangerous clowns a violent insurrection in the nation's capital--and inside the Capitol itself-- doesn't qualify as a political act. Only speaking about it does.
Other than that, I wonder what qualifies.
Acquitting a pretend president twice, the second time for fomenting the non-political insurrection?
Naw. Guess that wasn't political either.
Looks like the WaPo is emulating the biblical:
"Throughout the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency, Donald Trump was the name that shalt not be spoken."
Why use an archaic term when the modern "shall" is more than adequate?