Mark Meadows - Conspiratorial Hub Part II

or how political desperation birthed the Big Lie

When Mark Meadows took the reins as Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff in March 2020, he walked into a nightmare.

The coronavirus pandemic was forcing a shutdown of nations worldwide, the U.S. economy was falling further into a recession and had been since 2018¹, and Donald Trump’s penchant for playing to his base was hurting his reelection chances. Fortunately countering Democratic messaging was easy — there was a ready supply of Trump loyalists within the Freedom Caucus to parrot Trump.

The Freedom Caucus was formed after the 2010 midterms elections, which put the GOP back in control of the House — thanks to the Tea Party movement².

While the Tea Party was initially disaffected and disillusioned voters, the movement has morphed beyond it’s anti-spending, anti-seniority, and anti-institutionalist beginnings into a Trumpian Apath Society — they simply hate the things Trump hates, attack the things he attacks, and defend his statements, no matter how inane, untruthful, or disconnected from reality they are, to the hilt.

As a result of his moorings in the Freedom Caucus during his time in Congress, Mark Meadows had ready access to sycophantic politicians ready to defend President Trump.

Going into Election Day 2020, Meadows had regular contact with dozens of Members of Congress, but none were as close as Jim Jordan (R-OH), Mo Brooks (R-AL), and Scott Perry (R-PA). After Election Day and Donald Trump’s post election rant in the White House Press Room³, Trump’s inner circle of congressional loyalists expanded to include: Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Lauren Boebert (R-CO)⁴, Jody Hice (R-GA), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)⁵.

As President Trump moved from being President (and the dominant news story) to lame duck, he doubled down on his rant and began what is now referred to as the “Big Lie”. In the 63 days between Election Day and January 6th, dozens of lawsuits were filed in multiple courts attempting to prove without a shred of evidence that the election was somehow stolen.

The rationale for the Big Lie was two-fold. Trump could not handle losing psychologically or emotionally; and without the presidency, Trump’s legal problems were going to move from the back burner to the broiler.

The fact that the Big Lie was shut down by so many Republican state judges and Trump appointed federal judges should have been a teaching point for Trumpists. Instead it led to more and more desperate measures. After the Supreme Court stanched an attempt to oveturn the election result⁶ and the Presidential Electors voted confirming Joe Biden’s win⁷; Donald Trump, his gaggle of bad lawyers, and political loyalists decided to move from the “Big Lie” to a conspiratorial coup — steal the election back to keep Trump in office.

The plan was simple — replace slates of electors in enough states to put the Electoral College results in doubt and have the Vice President refuse to confirm Joe Biden as the President-Elect on January 6th.

Putting aside the legal and constitutional flaws in the plan, politically the plan was not going to sell with anyone other than Trumpists. Conservative idealists and anti-Trump nihilists within the GOP weren’t going to stand for it. Pragmatists, usually a reliable group of acquiesence, were not going to give in. And realists were going to be the finger pointers — they always are.

None of the above mattered to Donald Trump and his cadre of political apaths. They only needed to sell it to one person — Michael Richard Pence.

Tomorrow: Part III or how to overthrow the government and ensure everyone watches.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth-of-the-united-states-since-1990/

2. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/williamson/files/tea_party_pop.pdf

3. https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21551962/trump-white-house-news-conference-biden-election-2020-fraud

4. Boebert was a Representative-Elect

5. Marjorie Taylor Greene was a Representaive-Elect.

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Pennsylvania#:~:text=Pennsylvania%2C%20592%20U.S.%20___%20(2020,Biden%20defeated%20incumbent%20Donald%20Trump.

7. The Electors met on December 14, 2020 and cast their their ballots.