The Left’s high priestess of political drama has spoken again. Her recent diatribe regarding all things January 6 is a master class in projection, denial, lack of self-awareness, and gaslighting.

Let’s go to the tape:

So, today, January 6, the certification of the last presidential election happened in Washington, and it just happened ministerially and ceremonially, like it's supposed to. And that contrast with what happened today versus what happened four years ago makes clear the profound difference between the two parties, right?
 
Had Democrats won the presidential election this year, the whole country openly expected and was preparing for Republicans to go into violent, if not armed revolt. But because, instead, Republicans won, everyone expected and in fact we saw today that Democrats would peacefully accept and participate in the transfer of power.
 
And when a whole country expects guaranteed violence if one side loses an electoral contest, then the two political parties in that contest are no longer competing in democratic terms anymore. One of those parties is a small-D and capital-D Democratic Party. The other party is something else.

In saying “the whole country openly expected and was preparing for Republicans to go into violent, if not armed revolt,” Maddow deploys one of her favorite rhetorical devices. She asserts, as indisputable fact, with no supporting evidence whatsoever, that which only she has the brilliance to see. She of course then proceeds to build her house of cards premise on this, and other questionable assertions.

I, for one, certainly didn’t expect any meaningful political violence, and certainly no armed revolt if the Democrats won the presidential election. What did Rachel think the point of the Biden DoJ’s scorched earth policy of prosecuting anyone remotely connected to the events of J6 was? It was precisely to put the fear of God, or worse, the U.S. government, into any who would protest another Democratic presidential victory, regardless how questionable it might be.

She then extrapolates from here to state that the two political parties are no longer competing in democratic terms anymore. This is laughable. I would ask Maddow how many primary votes her candidate received. This defending democracy garbage from the Left is the peak of gall. They don’t give a rip about democracy, the only thing they care about defending is raw Democratic Party power and Maddow is an important cog in this machine. One more voice spewing the meticulously coordinated DNC talking points on any given day. Rachel was the undisputed queen of Russiagate!

The walls are closing in, we have Trump’s tax returns… Truth is old school. Narrative is the order of the day.

…how do we get the Republican Party and the Trumpist right to no longer see physical force and armed conflict as the way they're going to get their way and hold power?

Someone needs to remind Maddow of the BLM and Antifa riots that roiled the country in the summer of 2020. The gist of her piece is to decry Trump’s promise to pardon J6 defendants. I don’t know if she just can’t, or simply refuses, to juxtapose the treatment of the J6 defendants, prosecuted relentlessly and mercilessly, against the treatment of BLM and Antifa rioters, who were barely prosecuted at all. Hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness have become central to Democratic Party identity.

Now, as I mentioned, this is "The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, deeply conservative. I would take issue there with their characterization of Mr. Trump's support for law and order. He has repeatedly praised the idea of violence in his name for every year that he has been in public life. And so I would take issue with that.

I would take issue with Maddow’s characterization of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page as deeply conservative, though, to be fair, from Maddow’s perspective this may seem to be the case. I see them far more as ideological soulmates of the Bush/Romney/McCain Republican establishment.

And it would send an awful message about his view of the acceptability of political violence done on his behalf.

It just means so much more coming from the NeverTrump right than coming from her. And she’s not the one on the hook for providing any evidence to support it, though she does pile on by adding He has repeatedly praised the idea of violence in his name for every year that he has been in public life. Again, nary another word to support this assertion.

She goes on to ask:

Why does a leader who celebrates violence against his critics and his enemies want not just a government, not just the state to do his bidding; he also wants his mob; he also wants his paramilitary groups, people who have proven themselves willing to commit violence on his behalf? Why does he want the mob? Why does he want his paramilitary groups? Why does he want his violent ex-cons?

Here I suppose, we must remember that to the Left, words are violence and as such, Trump saying anything positive about those who would criticize his critics and his enemies, to Maddow’s shallow intellect, would constitute celebrating violence.

And again, it’s just given that President Trump wants the government and the state to do his bidding simply by Maddow’s proclamation.

And who exactly are Trump’s paramilitary groups and mobs? The Proud boys? Again, I would direct Maddow’s attention to the aforementioned BLM and Antifa mobs. It may also be worth mentioning that online left-wing mobs have taken cancelling political opponents from an art to a science over the past 20 years.

And finally:

The effort to remember and to stick to the truth of what happened there and not be gaslit and lied to that it was some sort of day of love and peace is unnerving and unsettling, and, yes, occasionally hilarious.

The queen of gaslighting cautions her flock on the perils of being gaslit by their opponents. Do you not remember Russiagate and the mostly peaceful BLM protests Rachel? That’s what gaslighting looks like, not that you should need to be told.

In answer to the titular question, is she just plain stupid, she certainly comes across as educated, for what that’s worth, but judging from what she says, as opposed to how she presents it, I just don’t find her to be exceptionally bright. She, and many others, confuse her patronizingly smug condescension for intellectual heft.

I’ll leave it at this: unless she is knowingly lying to her audience, then unequivocally, yes, she is just plain stupid.

Image: AT via Magic Studio