Insight

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues but the parent of all the others.” —Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC)

Observations

“There’s no one who wants to be known as a victim, except for the former president of the United States. ‘I am a victim,’ [Donald Trump] said in his announcement speech. ‘I will tell you I’m a victim.’ Trump has created a dynamic for his supporters where the more victimized he is, the better. … In all of this, Trump has the advantage of having been actually treated unfairly in the Russiagate investigation. It gives Trump the credibility to characterize any other allegation or investigation as simply 2017 redux. The way Trump uses victimhood accounts for his bizarre ability to reverse the usual political physics of events. Until the day before yesterday, having the FBI search your residence as part of a federal investigation would have been a major blow, if not the end of the target’s presidential ambitions. It helped Trump. An indictment might help him (at least in the short term) even more.” —Rich Lowry

For the Record

“As a tactical concern, the House GOP’s decision to open an investigation into Biden family corruption is questionable. It promises limited political return. It would serve Republicans, and the country, far better if the House focused on a hyper-politicized Justice Department that targets the political opposition, labels concerned parents ‘domestic terrorists’ and ignores violence aimed at pregnancy centers, for starters. None of that, however, means there isn’t sufficient circumstantial evidence suggesting President Joe Biden not only lied about knowing his son was favor-trading on the family name with corrupt autocracies but that he was a beneficiary of those business dealings. Indeed, precedent says we Republicans have a duty to ‘democracy’ to investigate. … If Joe were a Republican, Adam Schiff would not only have opened an investigation but he would have claimed to be in possession of irrefutable proof that the 2020 election had been bought by the Chinese.” —David Harsanyi

Non Compos Mentis

“The idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick. It’s just sick. It has no social redeeming values. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturer.” —Joe Biden

“If you spent the last two years helping to save democracy … I am very thankful for you!” —Congressman Eric Swalwell

“Today is a good day to remind you that whitewashing American history is how white supremacy thrives.” —former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich

The BIG Lies

“It’s also important to unpack the myth of Thanksgiving. It is a holiday riddled with historical inaccuracies, built on this myth that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn — a simplistic fairytale interpretation of a 1621 encounter between indigenous tribes and English settlers that erases the genocide that followed. It’s the truth Republicans want banned from our textbooks, because here’s the secret they want so desperately to keep: We are a country founded on violence. Our birth was violent.” —MSNBC’s Joy Reid

“If you just read that [‘all men are created equal’], you think the Declaration of Independence is a liberty document. But it’s actually not.” —1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones

Victimitis

“It will always be hard for me to claim any sort of patriotism. Just as a black person who descends from slavery.” —Nikole Hannah-Jones