In response to Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court to stop the January select committee from getting White House documents, this person said:
In fact, “it’s a delay tactic” is the common response on social media (and I assume elsewhere) when the topic of Trump’s lawsuits come up. The theory (which makes no sense) goes like this:
Trump is trying to delay the select committee from getting the documents until after November 2022 because, as is likely, the House will change hands and Republicans, in charge, will shut down the investigation.
This makes no sense because
- These cases are moving quickly
- There is no indication they are slowing down the committee
- The committee has said it will be finished with its work long before November, and there is every indication that this will happen
- The DOJ continues until at least 2024
- If the House falls to the Republicans, ending the investigation is really the least of our problems
The above is based on the idea that without investigations completed and indictments for high-up people filed, the Democrats won’t win in 2022. (I’ve talked elsewhere about the many wrong assumptions contained in that idea, but to name a few: Even if there are indictments of high-up people in the next 6 months, it will take at least another 6 months or longer before there is a trial; there is no indication that indictments will sway voters who are reluctant to vote Democratic.)
If not delay, what is the point?
It seems to me that these filings serve multiple purposes for Trump:
- They keep his base fired up, they help with fundraising, and they show that he’s a “fighter”
- They help seed right-wing talking points
When Nixon resigned, people like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were frustrated and angry. They wanted Nixon to keep fighting. John Dean said Nixon might have survived Watergate if there had been Fox News. In fact, right-wing media (as we now know it) arose after Nixon’s resignation in response to Nixon being (as the right-wing saw it) driven from office by an unfair and biased media.
Filing these lawsuits shows that Trump is a “fighter.” Here you can see Kevin McCarthy articulating the “fight! fight! fight!” mentality:
People also said the election fraud lawsuits were about “delay” but in fact, they didn’t delay anything at all. Trump lost them all. But here’s the part to notice: while the election lawsuits failed, they nonetheless served their purpose.
For an article that illustrates what I mean, see this excellent Atlantic-Journal Constitution article about Trump’s attempts to overturn the election in Georgia.
The article points out what we all saw: even after the lawsuit claiming fraud in the Georgia election was dismissed because it wasn’t supported by evidence, Republicans continued repeating the lie contained in the lawsuit.
The article then goes on to say:
See what’s happening?
One of the main arguments Trump is making in his executive privilege lawsuit is that the committee investigating the insurrection is illegitimate. It isn’t, and he will lose on this point, but he doesn’t seem to care, just as losing those election fraud cases didn’t faze him or stop him from claiming there was fraud in the election.
Trump, as head of the Republican anti-democratic party, signals the lie that his supporters are supposed to tell. It’s not a coincidence that in the other lawsuits being filed by Trump supporters against the committee, they, too, are arguing that the committee is illegitimate.
As with the election fraud lies, he expects that, if his lies are repeated often enough, people will believe them–and what he wants is for people to believe that the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection is illegitimate. If he’s ever brought to court, he will similarly seek to undermine the legitimacy of the court. He will say that the jurors are “Democrats” or whatever.
People claiming “Delay!” are projecting normalcy
I suggest that people who say this are assuming that Trump is thinking and behaving like a normal person:
Democracy is based on laws, which require truth and a shared factuality. Fascism is based on myth. They want to destroy factuality and delegitimize government. “It’s a delay tactic” assumes they accept the authority of law.
The assumption that Trump wants to delay the results assumes that Trump cares about the results, which assumes he lives in a world where facts matter. He doesn’t.
Put another way: Lies are a way of destroying. They destroy democracy. They destroy institutions.
The lie that the committee is illegitimate undermines the democratic government. That’s really the aim, right? To undermine democratic government so that something else can take over. Lies do what an insurrection does without as much blood.
As I see it, normal people are projecting normal motives onto Trump because it’s hard for most of us to grasp the concept that Trump and his supporters do not accept as real the world of facts.
It’s hard to grasp that Trump and others are deliberately telling outrageous lies as a strategy (or from sickness).
This is why, if people shout “DELAY TACTICS” each time Trump files something in court, they miss much of what’s happening.
* * *
Aside, here’s how a blog post like this comes about:
- A Twitter talking point shows up dozens of times in my Twitter feed (in this case, “Delay tactic!”)
- Often the talking point is what Timothy Snyder calls an Internet Trigger (or what I call a rage-inducing simplification)
- I try to explain why the talking point is too simple
- People keep repeating it
- I get very testy
- Then I start wondering “Why does everyone think this?” 🤔 (often I can trace the origins to a large or influential social media account)
- Then I write a thread on Twitter, and the thread becomes a blog post.
Here’s this blog post as a Twitter thread.
