Democrats and pundits are playing a weird game in which they each take turns declaring just how seriously they take the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Unsurprisingly, the game involves a lot of one-upmanship. Just as unsurprising is that the one-upmanship has made for increasingly deranged comments.
On Friday, former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri put in her best effort, announcing during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that she is going to make her family watch footage of the riot every year on the Fourth of July.
“We’re going to start a new family tradition in my family; on the Fourth of July and every Fourth of July going forward, we’re going to watch that video that the New York Times put together of Jan. 6,” the MSNBC contributor said, referring to a 40-minute documentary that meticulously follows the events of that day.
First, McCaskill surely is not going to do this. She is all talk.
Second, whom is this meant to impress? Oh, her colleagues, probably, the same crowd that will tell you with a straight face that Jan. 6 was worse than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. McCaskill, who served in the U.S. Senate from 2007 to 2019, is signaling her own righteousness. She wants everyone, especially her immediate peers in cable news, to know she takes Jan. 6 very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that she’s going to make it a staple of an annual family gathering.
This, folks, is what is known as “virtue signaling,” which Dictionary.com defines as, “the sharing of one’s point of view on a social or political issue, often on social media, in order to garner praise or acknowledgment of one’s righteousness from others who share that point of view, or to passively rebuke those who do not.”
On that note, I leave you with this parting thought from Glenn Greenwald, not because I believe the riot was funny (it wasn’t) but because I find this well-deserved mockery for McCaskill’s ham-fisted attempts to prove their righteous indignation humorous:
I mean I found the Q Shaman’s unexpected ascension to the Senate presidency and his brief but glorious reign as inspiring as anyone — a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for the 21st Century, if you will — but this seems a bit excessive: https://t.co/o99NMIAfKf
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 2, 2021
