June 10, 2022

Yes, I did watch the hearing on the Jan. 6^th events.  Unfortunately, all of the people who should have watched it probably did not.  It is highly unlikely that any ardent members of the Trump Society watched the hearing.   It would be like hoping that members of the Flat Earth Society watched the latest NASA rocket launch.  Their minds are made up, so even a tsunami of facts, videos, and sworn testimony is not going to sway their view of the world, i.e., Trump said the election was stolen, the actions of January 6^th were completely justified and were simply a mild protest, and there was no insurrection – therefore it is true!

Although, I was thinking that if I were a Fox News or OAN viewer, I would actually be insulted that those networks seem to think their viewers are incapable of making their own decisions about events like Jan. 6^th.  If those networks were confident that their ongoing narratives in support of the ‘Big Lie’ and the attempts to play down the Jan. 6^th insurrection would stand up to scrutiny, you would think they would be more than happy to air the Jan. 6^th hearings so people could make up their own minds.  It is somewhat ironic that the right-wing media harangues against ‘censorship’ of conservative viewpoints and yet they choose to essentially censor what their viewers are allowed to watch.  Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham and a few other Fox News personalities must believe that they, and they alone are the anointed ones, who are able to interpret what is going on in the world and feed it like pablum to their viewers.  Walter Cronkite must be turning over in his grave.

Besides the filmmaker and the Capitol police officer who testified, I thought the star of the evening was Liz Cheney, the Republican Representative from Wyoming, and the vice chair of the committee.  I will say at the outset that I do not agree with Liz Cheney on many policy issues.  However, she has more balls and integrity than almost the entire slate of Republicans in the House of Representatives (Adam Kitzinger, excepted).  I thought her opening statement was extremely well done and she is clearly not afraid to speak her mind.  She is what the Republican party used to be like before they turned into Trump ass-kissing, amoebas.

It sounds like there will be at least six or seven more hearings throughout June delving into various aspects of the events leading up to and during the January 6^th insurrection.  The real question is, “Will most Americans have the stamina or desire to sit through all of them?”  Given that we now live in an instant gratification and ‘SnapChat’ world, you wonder how long it will take before interest begins to wane.  I’m sure some will fall off and follow along on Twitter thinking that the fact that democracy in this country is under serious attack is not an issue worth their time. 

One would think that the plague of gun violence blanketing this country, the very real potential that Roe v. Wade will be overturned and with all of the evidence coming to light from these Jan. 6^th investigations and hearings, that it would sufficiently galvanize the electorate to vote against Republican candidates who continually block gun control legislation, support overturning Roe v. Wade and continue to propagate the ‘Big Lie’ and down play the events of Jan. 6^th – but I am afraid that will not happen.   Political ‘sins’ just don’t seem to be enough to vote people out of office and keep them from getting elected.

It was just announced that Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, who was forced out of office because of a number of ethics investigations, won the Republican primary here in Montana for the newly created House District.  People clearly say one thing and vote completely differently.  The big buzz words up here are things like ‘freedom’, ‘Montana values’, and ‘integrity’, yet Montanans just selected a man who was forced from office for ethical breaches, whose wife’s declared residence is in Santa Barbara, CA, and who lied to investigators about a land deal while he was Secretary of the Interior that would have benefitted himself.  And this is the man that some Montanans believe would be our best representative in Congress? 

I wish I could believe that the Jan. 6^th hearings would shock the electorate into believing the threat to democracy in this country is very, very real and motivate them to vote accordingly in November.  Unfortunately, based upon what I see going on, I can’t bring myself to believe that.  I think it’s going to be a long, hard, ugly winter.