Tuesday, June 7, 2022

YES! Every American Who's Appalled At Approaching Autocracy Needs To Watch The January 6th House Select Committee Hearings.

                                                                            
      "Doh! Dat January 6th stuff all old history! Beside, what 'bout free speech?"


 "I don't think Americans realize - like they have in the past- that you have to fight for democracy every single minute... All I'm saying to all our friends watching is this may be the year we lose our democracy. We may lose all sorts of rights. This is not a moment to sit on the fence. This is not a drill." - Historian Michael Beschloss on Rachel Maddow last night, re: the upcoming Jan. 6th hearings and why people need to pay attention. 

"For the first time, I’ve begun to understand the plight of German Jews in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Some concluded that this time was different and acted accordingly, often by leaving the country. But most could not take the worst case seriously, or even conceive of it. We’ve seen bad times before, they thought, and we’ve always managed to get through them. Surely our friends and neighbors won’t believe unscrupulous demagogues. We’re all good Germans, aren’t we?"-  William Galston, WSJ, 'What If It Can Happen Here?', p. A13,  Jan. 6, 2022

"The right has doggedly resisted the idea of holding accountable the man — Trump — who called the rioters together, who exhorted them like Vince Lombardi in a pregame speech and aimed them like a gun at the heart of American democracy. This refusal to impose consequences, combined with the passage of laws designed to restrict Democratic-leaning voters’ access to the polls and the installation of Trump loyalists in positions of authority over state elections strongly suggests that the events of Jan. 6 will ultimately prove to be not an isolated event, but a dress rehearsal for something far worse.  Because you see, they “love” America so. Oh, and their votes were “stolen.”

On this first anniversary, it seems appropriate — indeed, necessary — to call that claim out for the despicable crock it is." - Leonard Pitts Jr.,  The Miami Herald, Jan. 5, 2022, , 'Jan. 6 Rioters Do Not Love America, They Hate And Fear The America We're Becoming'


"It’s not the plague of “polarization” or “distrust,” some sort of floating miasma, that has darkened our society. Bluntly put, we are in deep trouble because a major party rationalizes both intense selfishness — the refusal to undertake even minor inconveniences such as mask-wearing or gun background checks for others’ protection — and deprivation of others’ rights (to vote, to make intimate decisions about reproduction, to be treated with respect).

There is a through line between celebration of a defeated president who demeans women, excuses neo-Nazi marchers and refuses to accept election results and the GOP’s appeals to White grievance, contempt for political compromise and displays of toxic masculinity — which celebrate unbridled access to guns.." - Jennifer Rubin, May 30, It’s time for Biden to strongly attack the White-grievance industry,   The Washington Post, 

There is no better time than Thursday night - prime time - for sentient and sane Americans to get their heads back into the realm of citizen responsibility.  Especially in preparation for the November mid-terms! This is especially given the threat we face from a power-hungry cult posing as a political party, and a lazy media willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.  The threat is real when one hears so many, as on evening news broadcasts, vowing they plan to "vote for change" in November because of exploding gas prices, food inflation etc.  I have news for these detached zombies, the Repuke Trump cult will not deliver any positive change, only more misery! Think cuts to Social Security based on House budget votes, full privatization of Medicare, cuts to food stamps - all to support another huge tax cut for millionaires.  Think savage abortion laws such as just passed in Louisiana and Oklahoma.  Think voting rights stripped to the bare bone like in Viktor Orban's Hungary - where the vote has become a charade.  Don't believe it can happen? Then you're not paying attention.

This is why it's critical those whose minds can still be saved need to  tune into the first prime time public hearings of the January 6th commission.  So far the indicators aren't sanguine as recent MSNBC polls now show only 45 percent believe Donald Trump was wholly or partially responsible for the January 6th  insurrection. This  compares to 52% barely six months earlier.  To that point it must be said that Merrick Garland's ponderous efforts at DOJ to hold the upper echelons of the Trump bunch accountable may have contributed to that, as WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin has noted, e.g.


Wherein she writes:

"In an effort to appear nonpartisan, he inoculated the party responsible for the assault on American democracy. On Jan. 6, “as the United States Congress was meeting to certify the vote count of the electoral college, a large crowd violently forced entry into the Capitol,” Garland said. “We all watched as police officers were punched, dragged, tased and beaten. We saw journalists targeted, assaulted, tackled and harassed...'   

It is apparently a mystery who motivated the insurrectionists — and which party set the stage for the insurrection and now perpetuates the “big lie” of a stolen election. Garland intoned that “the preservation of democracy requires our willingness to tell the truth” and declared that “we must ensure that the magnitude of an event like January 6th is not downplayed or understated.”  Is there not one party “downplaying” or “understating” the events of that day? Can we not identify who has called this sort of domestic terrorismlegitimate political discourse”?

 
 This is incomprehensible given the bloody nerve of high office Trumpers (like John Eastman)  to overturn the 2020 election while Trump's lower minions smeared feces all over the walls of Statuary Hall then insisted it was "legitimate speech".  Then marching around with confederate flags-  a spectacle to make a patriot puke.  And we haven't even looked at Traitor Trump's Machiavellian efforts to coordinate an overturning of the election using assorted nefarious actors (like Meadows & Eastman) and schemes right out of 'Seven Days in May'.  So it is no accident that - thanks to an inept, blind, false equivalence leaning media, and an AG who thus far has refused to pull the trigger on the big guns, that we're at a precipice.  (I DO give Garland credit for the seditious conspiracy charges against the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys).. 

But right now we all need to absorb and process the worst sedition and rebellion since the Civil War and the most violent Capitol attack since the War of 1812.  Those maggots tried to burn our democracy, our Republic to the ground using a pretext the 2020 election was "stolen".  All of which has been totally skewered in a recent book  entitled 'The Steal', by Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague, e.g.


The facts released in this welcome (and overdue)  book showed how the attempted Trump coup was much more detailed, sinister and complex than most have been led to believe.  Indeed, the authors make a strong case that the effort was merely a dry run for what to expect in 2024.   This is all the more reason to pay attention to the Select Committee hearings and how the lines and connections and details are now clear about what transpired.  Not paying attention or using the overworked chestnuts that "it's ancient history" or "we need to move on" are not options, except for losers.

The Trump-motivated traitors who stormed the Capitol 18 months ago want to smother the magnitude of their atrocity in euphemisms ("patriotic protest") and obfuscation, deflection ("It was Antifa",  "It was an FBI false flag").  But the Right's own celebrities and hacks on FOX (Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham) were themselves panicked by what was going on, proving they grasped the significance of the abomination underway. See e.g. this clip of the released Hannity texts from All In Tuesday night:

Newly Released Texts By The 1/6 Committee Deeply Implicate Hannity In The Insurrection's Planning - YouTube


Thus, the informed citizen, the real patriot who knows our real Constitution , knows these lying, obfuscating, dodging renegades- like Tucker Carlson-  are really out to destroy this nation. And this is why  their deplorable cult can never be allowed to have power handed to them again.  If Americans don't pay attention starting Thursday night to how and why this god-awful plot almost succeeded we are all in deep shit, the deepest, because the bastards will try it again. 

  Jennifer Rubin's most recent piece also makes that clear when she writes:

"Ultimately, the widespread assault on democracy can only be stopped by voters. Last month, when receiving the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in Courage award, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) warned that “we face a threat we have never faced before — a former president attempting to unravel our constitutional republic.” It is not only Trump, but an entire party that has taken up that cause."

The Founders-  let's recall-   were patricians by birth, but set out to devise a new form of government in which ordinary people would participate and enable its stable function. That experiment is still going on, and its end point is not settled.  This take is more than bolstered by the recent research of political historian Barbara Walter, leading to her book: 'How Civil Wars Start'.    According to Walter from her text:

We are no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy.  That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand, and then Canada.

 Our democracy is now on a knife edge between a marginal democracy and autocracy.  Indeed, as Barton Gelman points out:  'Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun'.   E.g.

How Donald Trump Could Subvert the 2024 Election - The Atlantic


Trump's seditious success hinges on whether too many voters are distracted, over wrought or have misplaced priorities  - including being blinded by inflation to the detriment of the nation's future - and possibly turning the U.S. into yet another refugee country.  A starting index will be how many tune into the hearings Thursday night - and not just political 'junkies' - and stay tuned in.   The news circulating this a.m. (WSJ, p. A4, 'Pessimistic Mood Deepens') is that "Democrats face a dispirited electorate heading into November's elections" which is understandable given inflation woes - but also unacceptable.  

Voters cannot allow themselves to be crushed into passivity, or worse, knee jerking to a disastrous "change" choice - which we will all regret. We must not end up like the 'good Germans' who made a similar terrible mistake 80 years ago.  E.g.


See Also:

by Heather Digby Parton | June 5, 2022 - 7:24am | permalink

— from Salon

Excerpt:

The long-awaited public hearings for the House select committee on the Jan. 6 insurrection have finally been scheduled. The first one is set for next Thursday, June 9, in prime time. The committee previewed its plans this week, announcing on Thursday that it will "present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power." Committee leaders seem to be carefully choreographing the event, even drawing out the suspense by not naming the witnesses until next week.

The hearings, said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., will "tell a story that will blow the roof off the House." We can only hope that is not unjustified hyperbole. These hearings will be the most important public record of an attempted coup, and the whole country should be watching.

And:

by Robert Reich | June 6, 2022 - 6:40am | permalink

— from Robert Reich's Substack

Excerpt:

The televised hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection, which begin Thursday, mark an historic milestone in the battle between democracy and autocracy. The events that culminated in the attack on the Capitol constitute the first attempted presidential coup in our nation’s 233-year history. The Select Committee’s inquiry is the most important congressional investigation of presidential wrongdoing since the Senate investigation of the Watergate scandals in the 1970s.

To a large degree, the success of those hearings will depend on the Wyoming Republican congresswoman and vice-chair of the committee, Liz Cheney. Although I have disagreed with almost every substantive position she has ever taken, I salute her courage and her patriotism. And I wish her success.

And:

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