OF COURSE THEY'LL EMBRACE THE INSURRECTIONISTS

This is the least surprising news of the day, except, apparently, to the mainstream media:

Former President Donald Trump is dangling the prospect of pardons for supporters who participated in the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol if he returns to the White House.

“If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6th fairly,” Trump said Saturday night during a rally in Conroe, Texas. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.”

Well, of course. What did we expect? They were rioting on his behalf, though he'd support them even if they hadn't massaged his ego, the same way he's expressing support for the convoy of anti-vaccine truckers in Canada -- he gets his news from the right-wing media, so he knows who strokes right-wingers' grievance pleasure centers. (After hours of Fox watching every day, he shares those grievances.)

Walter Shapiro, a mainstream-media graybeard who's written for USA Today, Time, Newsweek, and The Washington Post and is now writing for The New Republic, sees an opportunity for a gotcha:

Every other Republican thinking about 2024 like De Santis and Cruz should be asked whether they are in favor of blanket pardons. https://t.co/W03qrjOrcr

— Walter Shapiro (@MrWalterShapiro) January 30, 2022

Ben Jacobs, a much younger journalist with a deeper understanding of the American berserk, knows that, if asked, of course these presidential aspirants will back the insurrectionists, because they'll have to if they want votes from the angry base:

Would note this ratchet only goes in one direction as seen by Cruz going full Ray Epps in the past few weeks after getting condemned for calling January 6 a terrorist attack by Tucker Carlson https://t.co/Y0NSv355md

— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 30, 2022

Yes, Ted Cruz is now all in on the debunked theory that Epps, a former Oath Keeper, was an FBI operative planted in the crowd on January 6 so he could goad the participants into becoming a violent mob (apparently the crowd didn't have free will).

Maybe Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, and other Republican presidential wannabes who have old-fashioned notions of mainstream credibility will refrain from backing the rioters, but Cruz and DeSantis will certainly portray them as pitiable freedom fighters locked in an American gulag. And there'll be no downside for them. There's no evidence in America of a bloc of voters who are Republican-curious for 2024 but who regard support for the January 6 crowd as a dealbreaker. There are left-leaning voters who find the insurrectionists appalling and Republicans who regard them as heroes, but much of America seems unable to be roused to outrage about January 6 now that it's over and the transfer of power to Joe Biden happened. It's one more issue that Republican extremists can milk for maximum base motivation because swing voters can't be bothered to focus on it.