Ms. Comstock and her allies see a ray of hope in a proposed bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, and lawmakers today took a major step toward getting it off the ground. Representative John Katko, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, agreed to drop his party’s demand that the commission look into left-wing violence at racial justice protests as part of its investigation, a move that Ms. Comstock hailed as a sign of progress.
By establishing clearly what role Mr. Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill played in enabling the attack, she said, the commission could make it harder for Republicans to continue supporting “the big lie” that Mr. Trump is the victim of a vote-stealing conspiracy.
“That will be very important, to get this very much out in the open,” Ms. Comstock said.
Still, conservative media — the apparatus that has most consistently aided and abetted Mr. Trump’s distortions — has shown less and less interest in condemning the rioters as Jan. 6 has receded in the rearview mirror. And at least for now, Republican voters remain mostly supportive of the former president.
In a CNN poll from March, Republicans said by a 2-to-1 margin that they approved of how Mr. Trump had handled the events of Jan. 6.
But does that really mean a disaffected minority of Republicans will start a third party? For now, Ms. Comstock acknowledged, that remains a threat more than a realistic possibility.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/us/politics/republican-third-party.html
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