Quick take: What the new January 6 texts really reveal

 The continued drip of information from the January 6 investigation can be difficult to follow, but it is worth taking a moment to point out something important from the latest texts to surface, thanks to Mark Meadows.  The big news has been the reveal that Meadows, himself, probably committed voter fraud, and that he has now been purged from the voter rolls for having done so, which is what we call, in technical terms, "a little rich."  Yet, the more substantively important point comes from Mike Lee:  "This fight is about the fundamental fairness and integrity of our election system.  The nation is depending upon your continued resolve.  Stay strong and keep fighting Mr. President."  What do we learn from this text?  Lee actually believed The Big Lie.  He actually believed they were fighting for the integrity of the vote, and all that.  People lie a lot, but remember that most people want to think of themselves as good.  Only a true sociopath, like Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin or whoever said a naughty thing on twitter yesterday, has no cognitive need to rationalize his actions in moral terms, and true sociopaths are rare.  So, as a general rule, suppose you have two possible interpretations of someone's behavior.  A)  The person is lying, and knows he is doing an evil deed.  B)  The person is deluded, and thinks he is doing right, when in fact, he is doing wrong.  Generally speaking, go with interpretation B.

One of my all-time musical heroes, and the first guitarist I ever really tried to imitate.  John Fahey, "On Doing An Evil Deed Blues," from The Legend Of Blind Joe Death.