We're just under a week away from Congressional hearings of the January 6 committee, a process which already promised to be excruciating. Now there's word of a counterprogramming blitz from Mr. Trump's GOP, which is only going to add to the furor. (Not very many details, here.)
For readers who may have missed it, what happened on 6 January, along with a pretty ordinary political rally plus a protest-without-permit on Capital grounds, was a mob assault on the U. S. Capital, and on Senators, Congressthings, staff and the Vice-President, no different in kind to the violent riots in city centers and against government buildings of the preceding summer and fall, but very different in degree: burn a courthouse or wipe out downtown Seattle and we've got plenty more courthouses and big-city downtowns; knock out the Capitol and the Number Two guy in the Executive, and the fallback will be frantic Continuity-of-Government improvisation from Raven Rock and Mount Weather. If you thought the Great White Father in D.C. was high-handed and arbitrary, you're really gonna hate CoG. (And the system has serious flaws that could result in a POTUS vs. CoG situation, or similar messes. Yes, the Fed.gov is a big, ugly, awkward system. All of the alternatives are much worse.)
Yeah, yeah, the Official Line from a nearly-unrecognizable Republican Party is that it was just youthful high spirits, and/or fantasy-football nonsense about election meddling; on the latter, a majority (all, as nearly as I can tell) of Republican Secretaries of State and other election officials swear or affirm that their states ran clean, honest elections, and I believe them. And "just high spirits?" Over a billion dollars in damage, multiple injuries and several deaths demonstrate it was far worse.
Taking a long view, it's almost unfortunate the rioting, would-be insurrectionists didn't encounter and lay hold of the Vice-President or a member of Federal legislature, because then we'd all have no choice but to treat the events seriously. Almost unfortunate -- but I can't wish grievous harm on anyone, even in service of getting the rest of us to face reality. The United States of America went dancing along the edge of a volcano on 6 January 2021 and we almost fell in. Hardly anyone is taking it seriously. I'm not even entirely confident the January 6 committee is.
I guess we'll find out, if we can hear it over the noise, but I don't have much hope it will help.
P.S., ever wonder why some of the dumbest on both sides of the political divide do so well in politics? Here's some insight.
Update
5 minutes ago
1 comment:
I see what you're saying about having a sort of forlorn wish that they had actually accomplished something on their goal list, like laying hands on Pence, or whatever. I do. There would be no doubt, and at that point, anyone defending the riot/insurrection on the 6th could absolutely be shunned as "not my countrymen".
However, like you, I also see that the consequences of that would have been so damn severe. Like, "we can't come back from this" severe. As it sits, if we play our cards right, we will absolutely be able to come back from this. We just need to get two messages across.
First, Trump did a bad thing, and a thing that should be prosecuted, but we're not going to prosecute because that sets a bad precedent.
Second, stop undermining our election process. Russian collusion, 2,000 mules, ghost votes, ballot harvesting... Honestly, put up or shut up. If you don't have proof of your allegations, then STFU. We cannot survive the erosion of confidence in our election process, and both sides are gleefully participating in it right now. That MUST STOP.
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