January 6 Committee Loosening Trump’s Grip on Republican Party - Horowitz

January 6 Committee Loosening Trump’s Grip on Republican Party - Horowitz

Continuing its apt use of former Trump staffers and other Republican officials to tell the story of January 6th and the events that led up to it, the House select committee employed its final hearing of the summer to fill in the details of President Trump’s refusal to take any meaningful action to halt the violent invasion of the Capitol by his supporters for more than 3 hours on that fateful day.  

The hearing, which was held this past Thursday, featured Trump’s deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, persuasive and credible witnesses whom were present in the White House on that day and able to provide insights into the then-President pouring “fuel on the fire” and further endangering the then vice-president by tweeting that he ‘didn’t have the courage to do what could have been done,” despite knowing the attack on the Capitol was underway.  These two former Trump officials also put an exclamation point on the former president’s failure to call off the mob of his supporters—a mob that he had unleashed.  The juxtaposition of Mr. Trump’s inaction with video clips of the violence at the Capitol drove home the point in a way designed to evoke a strong emotional reaction from viewers.

In the wake of this powerful final summer hearing, two conservative, Murdoch-owned newspapers, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, editorialized that Trump’s behavior on January 6 disqualified him from ever serving in office again.  “It’s up to the Justice Department to decide if this is a crime," editorialized the New York Post. “But as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.” The Wall Street Journal sounded a similar note:  "Mr. Trump took an oath to defend the Constitution, and he had a duty as Commander in Chief to protect the Capitol from a mob attacking it in his name. He refused." While The Wall Street Journal had criticized the former president’s post-election actions several times before, up to this recent editorial, the New York Post had been reluctant to go after the former president.  

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As the hearings have unfolded over the summer, at Fox News, our nation’s most important conservative media outlet, --which is also owned by the Murdochs-- there has been an increasing willingness by hosts and newscasters to criticize the former president and far less dismissal of the hearings as just a partisan exercise. To be certain, the Fox prime-time hosts continue to attack the committee and downplay January 6th, but over the rest of the schedule and in the news reporting on the committee, an acknowledgment of the new facts uncovered and the former president’s culpability are becoming more common. These cracks in the right-wing media echo chamber are likely to widen, emboldening more media conservatives and Republican elected officials to distance themselves from Mr. Trump.

These shifts in the media coverage that Republicans are most likely to trust, along with the general saturation level of media penetration of the January 6 hearings, are beginning to have an impact on Republicans' and conservatives’ perceptions of the insurrection and Mr. Trump’s responsibility for it.  In a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed just before the final hearing, 40% of Republicans “believe Trump is at least partially responsible for the deadly riot.” as compared to 33% who believed that six weeks ago before the hearings began. Over the same time period, there has also been a marked drop in the percentage of Republicans who believe the election was stolen. Before the hearings began, 67% of Republicans believed the election was stolen, while 55% now do, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

There are signs that the continuing focus on January 6, combined with Mr. Trump’s continuing public re-litigation of the 2020 election, are resulting in even some Republicans who have not changed their views of January 6 or Mr. Trump softening their support and becoming open to 2024 alternatives. “Now, one-third of Republican respondents think Trump should not run for president again in 2024, up from a quarter who held that view in early June when the bipartisan congressional probe began broadcasting hearings.” reports Reuters.  “You can see the effect of the hearings in the percentage of Republicans who want him to run again,” Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster, told The Washington Post “A great many Republicans are protective of him and defensive of their support for him but increasingly of the view that he carries way too much baggage to be the nominee in 2024.”

Tellingly, Mr. Trump has dropped to under 50% in national Republican 2024 nomination preference polling, with Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) gaining significant ground. Much more importantly, DeSantis is becoming increasingly competitive in the early primary and caucus states, even besting Trump in at least one poll in New Hampshire.

It is still the case that Donald Trump remains popular with most Republicans. If he runs, he remains the favorite to win the nomination of his party in 2024, especially if it turns out to be a large multi-candidate field where he can garner primary wins with much less than 50% of the vote. 

The hearings, however, are damaging his standing with Republicans and conservatives, certainly not to the extent that his actions merit, but sufficiently to create opportunities for opponents to emerge and to open up more political space for more Republicans and conservatives to be critical of Mr. Trump’s continuing advancement of the “Big Lie” and his reckless attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, clinging to the presidency no matter what the cost to our nation.
This is one of the many services to our democracy for which we can thank the House select committee on January 6.