Thursday is the first hearing of House Republicans’ most pointless of endeavors, a subcommittee devoted to exposing “the weaponization of the federal government.” Nestled under the Judiciary Committee, the clunkily-named panel will be the foundry for some of the most inane viral moments to hit conservative media in the next two years.
While the setting may be different, the story that Republicans are using the subcommittee to try to sell is the same one they’ve been trying to sell since the Obama administration. To wit: America’s conservatives are the subject of a vast and unyielding harassment campaign, forced to either muzzle their beliefs or face outsized retribution. Thursday’s testimony in particular will focus on the supposed “politicization” Republicans say has gone on at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in recent years.
Their outrage includes a tinge of jealousy. The (mostly white) conservatives that Republicans are cynically championing believe the government is giving preferential treatment to LGBTQ people and racial minorities and leaving them excluded and prone to abuse. From where they’re sitting, conservatives have become a minority group in America, and they demand the same sort of protections from oppression that have been granted to every other protected class.
Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is also chairing the subcommittee, would probably never put it that way. But I don’t know how else to process the narrative that the GOP has cobbled together, as evidenced by the two panels of witnesses they’ve convened for Thursday’s hearing.
Their outrage includes a tinge of jealousy.
The first consists entirely of politicians, who are, of course, known for their unbiased and nonpartisan analysis. The GOP’s three witnesses — Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a nominal Democrat who left the party — have all accused the Justice Department of attacking…
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