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The Strange Case of Marc Elias
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The Strange Case of Marc Elias

The Democrats' lawyer picks the wrong targets

Charlie Sykes
Dec 13, 2021
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The Strange Case of Marc Elias
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Attorney Marc Elias (Photo by David Jolkovski for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

If you paid any attention at all to the litigation over the 2020 election, you know the name Marc Elias: the Democrats’ super-lawyer who ran up the score against Trump’s attempts to get the courts to help him steal the election.

The guy is a genuine hero.

Elias, who was general counsel for the presidential campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, remains very much the tip of the spear in efforts to defend democracy in the courts. He describes his new website, Democracy Docket, as “the leading progressive media platform dedicated to providing information, opinion and analysis about voting rights and more."

So, he is presumably a very busy man these days, which makes his new obsession more than a little strange.

ICYMI, Marc Elias’s idée fixe is dragging the media for being nice to Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. In tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet, he ignores the other 200+ GOP members of Congress, while dragging the handful of Republicans who have been the most outspoken about the attacks on January 6.

Since the end of July, I can find only two Elias tweets that mention Kevin McCarthy (one of them is actually an attack on Kinzinger). He’s mentioned Mitch McConnell in his own tweets a grand total of two times during 2021.

And the the only time I can find that he’s even mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert was this tweet from early December, when he explains that Kinzinger and Mitt Romney are worse than the actual crackpots.

This seems, um, skewed… and more than a little counterproductive, especially in the context of the ongoing attack on democratic norms.

**

Elias explains that he is “absolutist in advocating for the right to vote and democracy. I criticize anyone who claims they are in favor of the second, but not the first.” Both Cheney and Kinzinger voted against various Democratic voting rights bills that have been before Congress. (For the record, I also disagree with them and would have voted for the John Lewis Act.)

But this is what has turned Elias into an obsessive scold.

So, last week after Tim Alberta profiled Rep. Peter Meijer — one of the 10 Republicans who voted for Trump’s second impeachment — Elias insisted that the media stop “making heroes” of anti-Trump Republicans. And by “heroes,” he means giving them any credit for the stands they have taken.

His contempt for Meijer is consistent with his stance on other anti-Trump Republicans. Despite Liz Cheney’s role on the 1/6 committee, Elias is triggered by favorable coverage or suggestions that she might be showing political courage.

Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Cheney opposes voting rights. Vote Democrat.

60 Minutes @60Minutes

“A vote against me in this race, a vote for whomever Donald Trump has endorsed, is a vote for… somebody who's willing to put allegiance to Trump above allegiance to the Constitution,” says Congresswoman Liz Cheney about her 2022 House race. https://t.co/GVpHJnciKd https://t.co/leBYtUG6qU

September 27th 2021

2,195 Retweets9,481 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Liz Cheney Might Be Against the Insurrection But She’s All For Voter Suppression

May 24th 2021

3,052 Retweets9,442 Likes

He’s also upset by praise for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who not only resisted, but also blew the whistle on Trump’s attempts to steal the election in Georgia. Elias devotes his most recent post to putting Raffensperger back in his place. "No one suggests that Raffensperger did anything exceptionally good, only that he did not do something exceptionally bad,” he writes.

But his objections to Cheney and Raffensperger pale next to his obsession with Adam Kinzinger. See for yourself.

Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Kinzinger voted for McCarthy for Speaker.🦨

MSNBC @MSNBC

"He's hugging the skunk, you're going to get sprayed," Rep. Kinzinger says on Minority Leader McCarthy. https://t.co/PXe5qWV7mG

November 29th 2021

740 Retweets4,542 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
The media acts like Kinzinger's support of Jan 6 commission is more important than his opposition to voting rights because they saw the first on TV affecting powerful people and the second is invisible to them and affects the disenfranchised.

October 29th 2021

1,992 Retweets8,366 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Fixed it👇 Breaking News: Representative Adam Kinzinger, a prominent Republican critic of voting rights, announced Friday that he would not seek re-election in 2022. He implied he may seek higher office as a way to increase book sales and speaking fees.

The New York Times @nytimes

Breaking News: Representative Adam Kinzinger, a prominent Republican critic of Donald Trump, announced Friday that he would not seek re-election in 2022. He implied he may seek higher office. https://t.co/NFWKVwTysI

October 29th 2021

985 Retweets4,030 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Correction: Rep. Adam Kinzinger, outspoken GOP critic of voting rights, announces he won’t seek reelection

The Washington Post @washingtonpost

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, outspoken GOP critic of Trump and his grip on the party, announces he won’t seek reelection https://t.co/dQUgcSv5dO

October 29th 2021

306 Retweets1,650 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
The media acts like Kinzinger's support of Jan 6 commission is more important than his opposition to voting rights because they saw the first on TV affecting powerful people and the second is invisible to them and affects the disenfranchised.

October 29th 2021

1,992 Retweets8,366 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Go ahead and tell me again how Adam Kinzinger is a reasonable Republican. He is as much of a coward as the rest of the GOP.

Acyn @Acyn

206 House Republicans vote for a default. The other six didn’t vote at all https://t.co/ikhFnFTbD2

October 13th 2021

2,121 Retweets8,442 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Perhaps this will be the weekend that a reporter finally asks Adam Kinzinger why he opposes the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.🙏

October 15th 2021

4,375 Retweets21,580 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Hey @jaketapper--please ask Kinzinger why he voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act. He pretends to be pro-democracy, but when push comes to shove he votes with the GOP against voting rights, fair redistricting and democracy protections.

State of the Union @CNNSotu

SUNDAY: @RepKinzinger joins @jaketapper on #CNNSOTU. Tune in! https://t.co/JaUW88979t

October 15th 2021

969 Retweets2,988 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Can the next journalist who interviews @AdamKinzinger please ask him why he voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Act?

September 18th 2021

8,281 Retweets44,255 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
I saw Adam Kinzinger was being interviewed on TV today and still no one asks him why he voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It is almost as if the media doesn't care.

October 5th 2021

6,558 Retweets29,209 Likes
Twitter avatar for @marceeliasMarc E. Elias @marceelias
Adam Kinzinger voted against the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Good Riddance.
How screwed is Adam Kinzinger?Illinois Democrats are on the verge of rolling out a new congressional map that could end the House career of one of the GOP’s most prominent Trump critics.politico.com

August 25th 2021

3,223 Retweets12,488 Likes

**

Both the focus and the timing of Elias’s jihad are curious. The next Trumpist coup is already taking shape, and Stop the Steal candidates are running for offices that will control the next elections.

Elias defends his attacks on anti-Trump GOPers by citing Martin Luther King Jr.’s comment that “the greatest tragedy” in the struggle for civil rights was “the appalling silence of the good people.” And, indeed, Elias is making an important point about the GOP’s surrender to Trumpism. The best do lack all conviction while the worst are filled with Fox-fueled passionate intensity.

But… this is where he loses the thread.

Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have been anything but silent. They may not agree with 100% of Elias’s agenda, but “silence” is not among their sins.

And here we come to the real strangeness of Elias’s case: The rescue of democracy will ultimately have to be a bipartisan affair — and democracy also includes the acceptance of disagreements from temporary allies.

So maybe Cheney and Kinzinger are not worse that MTG? And Boebert? And Paul Gosar?

And maybe Marc Elias will remember that sometimes the enemy of my enemy is… my friend?

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Samantha
Dec 13, 2021

What we need is to take voting completely out of partisan hands. I agree with Elias that Cheney and Kinzinger are hypocritical in not supporting voting rights, but GOP has made this an insanely political issue because in their minds the more people vote, the more likely it is for Dems to win. Which is true, for the most part. Although more people voted in the last election than ever before and 75 million people voted for Trump. The fact that GOP can run on a complete lack of policy ideas and still get that many votes is impressive, even if terrifying.

Unfortunately, Elias hasn't learned the important lesson, which all progressive bros on the internet should learn, that yelling/lecturing people on Twitter doesn't create better outcomes. It'd be better to focus his frustrations on fixing gerrymandering, a bipartisan problem.

Gerrymandering should be left to independent commissions. Everyone should be able to vote by mail, and elections should be decentralized and state run. There, I just fixed voting.

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Liberal Cynic
Writes Dark Before Dawn Dec 13, 2021

I remember being asked over and over again if I truly believe democracy is under existential threat then act like it. Cheney and Kinzinger, while good on 1/6, are not acting like they think democracy is under existential threat.

They voted to protect Republican voter suppression.

They voted to send the federal government into default.

Cheney voted to let MTG stay in her committee assignments.

They looked at Trump in 2020 and said, "Yeah, we want 4 more years of this" and voted for him against Biden.

I'm not willing to give them a free pass just because they've been good on the 1/6 committee.

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