Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The lack of character is why Republicans are losers

Politico:

Senate GOP moderates fume as McConnell prepares to block Jan. 6 commission

McConnell has argued that advancing the commission is unlikely to reveal things not already dug up by existing probes, including those by lawmakers themselves. And he’s also argued internally to his conference that a lengthy commission wouldn’t be good politics heading into the midterms, contending it could uncover damaging revelations related to former President Donald Trump that would hurt Republicans.

Translation: if they knew what we know, it would be bad for us.

Gail Collins/WaPo:

‘Witch Hunt,’ Meet Grand Jury

So many investigations, people.

“This is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history,” Donald Trump said, complaining about the multiple probes into his business practices.

That was in an online statement practically no one seems to have read. Truly, of all the former president’s problems, his greatest woe has to be that Twitter ban. As The Washington Post cruelly reported, the new website he’s put up as a replacement has “attracted fewer estimated visitors than the pet-adoption service Petfinder and the recipe site Delish.”

Well, yeah. Take your pick: a new puppy, a new pasta recipe or a new post-presidential whine.

Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg:

Five X Factors Looming Over the 2022 Elections

In normal political eras, U.S. midterms are decided by party status and the president’s popularity. This time there’s Trump and Covid.

So 2022 would be a good year for Republicans, although their gains would probably be somewhat smaller than usual because Democrats, especially in the U.S. House of Representatives and in state legislatures, lost ground in 2020. Then I’d say: Watch President Joe Biden’s approval ratings, and those will tell you the rest of what’s predictable.

And that’s probably what will matter most next November. But there are several unusual factors that could change things. Let’s get to it:

The pandemic, the economy, Trump, cheating. 

Axios:

Why QAnon is disappearing from online view

What they’re saying: “Moderation actions after the Capitol attack were particularly effective in stomping down what remained of QAnon chatter online,” said Jared Holt, resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The data shows the companies didn’t act… until it was exploding off the charts.”

• “The research is very significant,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “Concerted content moderation works… When they put their minds to it, the mainstream platforms can have a very big effect on marginalizing or eliminating toxic content.”

The bottom line: Aggressive content moderation aimed at limiting extremist content can work, but “decisions to enforce rules and address threats of extremism are often prompted by tragedy instead of proactive thinking,” said Holt.

FiveThirtyEight:

Why Militias Are So Hard To Stop

When you’ve got neo-Nazis harassing an innocent family in the suburbs because of a podcast that has nothing to do with them, it’s pretty clear this country has a domestic extremism problem. The Department of Homeland Security knows it, Congress knows it, and every single person who watched the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in horror knows it. There are many elements to the domestic extremism threat in America, but one prominent component is private militias. An assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has warned that violent extremist militias present “the most lethal” threats in the U.S., and the share of public demonstrations involving far-right militias has increased since the 2020 general election, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

But it’s one thing to identify a problem; it’s another to figure out what to do about it. Militias pose a prickly dilemma for law enforcement because they butt up against a bunch of different American narratives around self-defense, gun rights and how to live in a safe society. Some militias are just a group of guys doing target practice in the woods. Other militias plot to kidnap a governor.