Since the 2020 election, there has been a bull elephant pooping far and wide on the floor of the big tent known as the Republican Party. Despite all the bellowing and hold-your-nose odor, much of the audience still comes to the circus just to see the elephant. But after the midterm elections, when a much larger crowd than expected made it clear they really don’t like the elephant, what’s a party to do?

Speaker-in-waiting Kevin McCarthy is pledging a public investigation of the Jan. 6 commission’s investigators. Seems kinda dumb: you’re asking Liz, the two Adams and a host of others to defend themselves, which has to trigger a replay of a mountain of Trump-­incriminating sworn testimony from mob-assaulted police, former Trump loyalists and advocates, attorneys, senior staff and Cabinet members, attorneys general, and even a few Army generals. Same testimony, different audience: Those shunning the committee hearings will fly to this one — right-wing news channels, Republicans (MAGAs and less so) — but in lieu of the libs bloodletting they expect to see, they will be treated to a hemorrhage of irrefutable evidence of Trump lies, self-­delusions, megalomania, narcissism and sedition.

Perhaps this would not be a screw-up, but a stroke of genius? What if Kevin and Mitch figured out that such a spectacle would dampen the enthusiasm of the base, and enough of the audience would flee the tent so that the old, wounded elephant could be chased out and replaced with a new, fresh one with better bowel control? An elephant from Florida, perhaps.

Joseph Jamison

Greensburg

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