A few random thoughts on the hearing
- If the hearings last night made anything crystal clear, it was that Trump was the main organizing agent of the January 6 insurrection. What wasn’t so obvious was the footprint of the Republican Party in this insurrection and its aftermath. But the GOP was anything but onlooker. Some Republicans were active participants in the conspriracy, while others, intially shocked by this singular event in U.S. history, quickly morphed into spin doctors, at once sanitizing what happened, minimizing Trump’s role as the primary agent of insurrections, and eargerly embracing and spreading the Big Lie – a rigged election that Trump actually won.
- I was struck by the extent of the coordination between Trump and his inner circle and the proto fascist groups, like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. In the immediate aftermath of the elections I underestimated the likehood of a violent insurrection to overturn the elections and impose, if not all at once, a white nationalist, anti-democratic, authoritarian political order. Not the first time I was wide of the mark, and probably won’t be the last.
- 20 million people watched the hearings. And according to one report, focus groups of independent voters were disturbed by what they heard and saw. How that will translate in the voting booth this fall is anybody’s guess at this point.
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