As a former high school history and government teacher, I followed the January 6th Trump insurrection hearings in Congress with great interest. I sometimes left work around the house undone, and stayed up late to finish leftover office work in order to watch virtually every minute. I've been a legislative advocate for a specific group on several occasions, and I've even testified before hearings in a state legislative situation, but there were a few things about these hearings, and what occurred as a result, that I didn't know before and was surprised to learn.
For all of the seriousness and the attention paid to getting a committee in place, and determining how it would move forward, I was surprised, and disappointed, that such groups really have very little clout when it comes to taking action based on the evidence that the hearings uncover. I realize that much of what they were doing was to bring facts to the light of day, to keep people informed about what was happening, and to investigate possible legislation that could be developed to prevent such things from happening again. But, really, how many people in this country paid any attention to a congressional hearing? Perhaps 10-15% were informed by the very public presentation, no more than that.
What's happened during, and since the January 6th Trump Insurrection has been nothing short of appalling. I have no vocabulary strong enough or condemning enough to express my utter disgust and disappointment with that group of Americans, displaying their appalling and obtuse ignorance and their total abandonment of reason and critical thinking in attacking the Congress while in a dual session for the purpose of certifying an election in which none of the alleged "fraud" could be proven. Those who showed up demonstrated total lack of respect for the constitution's provisions for the separation of powers, operation of the federal government and the peaceful transfer of power.
This was the most heinous attack on American government since the Civil War. In all honesty, those who participated in it should have had their citizenship revoked, and required to go through the process of learning about the constitution, like foreigners who want to become citizens, before being allowed back into American society.
Why "We, the People" Didn't Demand That Trump Be Declared Ineligible for Public Office For Inciting This Insurrection?
The congressional investigation was impeccable. Evidence was laid out in front of anyone who cared to take a look at it. The committee was virtually flawless in their presentation and remarkably unified in their conclusions. I was quite baffled at the fact that four members of the House were able to defy subpoenas, and allowed to get away with it. This is a clear indication Republicans no longer have any respect for the rule of law, or the constitution, and that is something that we, the people, need to correct by making them suffer the consequence of not being allowed to participate in government if they won't cooperate. I don't know how it was that members of Congress didn't get that message when we had a majority in both Houses.
The inability of the justice department to take that evidence, make a case with it and get it moving in a timely fashion is simply inexcusable incompetence. I'm angry at the foot-dragging, delaying obfuscation that went on at the DOJ for a couple of reasons. One is because we were left with the impression that they were moving as quickly as they could, given the deliberate and cumbersome nature of a legal system slanted to favor the rich who can afford good legal representation that slows down the process and makes a strategy out of interminable delays and legal minutia. The other is because they were lying about it, and they weren't actually doing anything at all, and had it not been for this being discovered, almost a year later in the process, and there having been a public outcry over it, no charges might ever have been filed against Trump for leading an insurrection.
And this is where my anger burns a bit hotter. The prime narrative of the Biden campaign, and his administration, along with his aims for re-election, emphasized that Trump was an existential threat to American democracy, and that the coming elections were crucial to the preservation of our democracy and the most consequential of our lifetime. Yet, they had the power, and the evidence, to have Trump permanently declared ineligible for public office by charging him with insurrection and making that verdict stick, because that's all it would have taken and it would have been the easiest case to prove.
Somehow Merrick Garland, who managed to get Hunter Biden indicted in relatively short order, either couldn't, or wouldn't grasp how serious it was to get Trump to trial, and get guilty verdicts for all of his crimes. And I'm really angry about that, including that he's still there, in the justice department, collecting a check made up of the dollars of taxpayers he betrayed with his delaying, obfuscation and incompetence. And that's what it is, until someone changes my mind.
Let me tell you, this has really tested my loyalty to the Democratic party. If Trump really was the existential threat to American democracy that we've been hearing since the first time he took office, then they needed to show us they believed that, too, by prosecuting him. The fact that they had four years, and couldn't get this done not only makes me furious, but it makes me question whether or not they really believe their own rhetoric. The impending disaster which will result from losing the most consequential election of my lifetime to a demagogue who is going to destroy the constitution could have been prevented. And it wasn't.
And that's not the only incompetence and lack of courage displayed by the Department of Justice, which is a misnomer.
The hottest topic of discussion this week was centered on a member of the United States Congress from Florida, a man who should aspire to, and reflect, a higher moral character than the culture at large, because of the responsibility he had in making and upholding the laws of this country. This particular congressman had already earned a reputation as a smart-mouthed, disrespectful, arrogant loudmouth who is incapable of reasonable conversation and compromise required of lawmakers because he makes his points using lies and by refusing to listen to other points of view, rudely continuing to talk over them while they are making their point. His whole demeanor, including facial expressions, says "I'm an ugly person, inside and out."
So how is it that our justice department, headed by an attorney general appointed by a Democrat, quickly and effectively came up with a special counsel and investigation to charge the son of the President of the United States, a Democrat, but not Matt Gaetz, a Republican, who, as everyone in the country now knows, engaged in illegal sexual activity with a minor?
If there is no justice in this country for everybody, then there is no justice in this country.
We've Lost Our Free Press
The motto of the Washington Post has been, "Democracy dies in darkness." Well, the sun went down on November 5th. It was already setting, the inevitable end already visible and apparently unstoppable. It's been dark in the mainstream media for a long time, and it took just four more years to kill democracy.
It's dead, and whatever speculation or hope or "best guess" is still making the rounds about righting the ship during the mid-term elections, or who Democrats might run in 2028 is nothing but empty talk. We do not have a free press anymore, we have corporate media outlets that run the chatter of a billionaire oligarchy.
Democracy is dead in the alleged votes of 76 million Americans who displayed either their complete ignorance of it, or their disdain for it, by voting for Trump. That's not quite half of those who voted, and far short of being half of the American electorate, some of which demonstrated their disdain or ignorance by simply not voting. We have failed two generations of American students now by removing the requirement that they not be allowed to either quit school or graduate until they can articulate a working knowledge of the Constitution, and explain how a constitutional democracy works. Immigrants who apply for American citizenship know far more about our country than our own students do.
Democracy is dead as a result of a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week campaign the allegedly "fair and balanced" news media conducted on behalf of Donald Trump. It is not possible to find one single day since January 20, 2021, in which Donald Trump was not prominently featured in the news, far more coverage than the sitting President ever received. It's dead because the media did not tell the truth, or expose Trump's flaws, gaffes, inconsistencies and mental breakdowns, and rarely ran fact checks on his thousands of outright lies.
John Dewey, the educational reformer of the early twentieth century, once said that an educated electorate was the key to the preservation of the Republic and also to progressive social reform which would eventually overcome the inherent problems of humanity. So far, no society has yet been able to achieve the level of education necessary for full social reform, which would prove Dewey's thesis correct. But in this country, we are now proving that the opposite is true. We have seen the development of a populist line of thinking that is hostile to education because it does produce social reform, and in the process of preventing that from happening, an uneducated electorate is dismantling constitutional democracy, because they are ignorant of it. Some are ignorant because they choose to be, while the media promotes ignorance in order to profit off of it.
The outlets and groups that now constitute America's free press are small, run on tiny budgets and are in danger of being snuffed out and overwhelmed by corporate media and, under a Trump administration, by the government itself.
This Mess is What Young Americans See as an Example
I'm far more concerned about the effect this is having on an entire generation of American children and youth, than I am simply angry about the politics, and the stupidity. These are not just politicians and lawmakers we are electing, they are people who are in a position to set an example for the young lives in this country, that is its future.
I do not see how someone like Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, can stand in his pulpit, and tell the younger members of his congregation about the moral values that are a visible expression of the Christian gospel, after returning from the election celebration at Mar-a-Lago of a man who has declared publicly to him that he has done nothing requiring God's forgiveness, not the rapes and assaults he committed, the highly publicized adulterous affairs that ruined two of his three marriages, the hush money paid to a porn star he was sleeping with while his third wife was pregnant, the fraud in business and the incessant lying.
I'm sure there are plenty of young people in his church who see all of this. How can he stand in the pulpit and proclaim the Christian gospel, while fully supporting, with his presence and his proclamation, a man who denies every point of that very same gospel openly, and in a way that actually mocks Jeffress, and every other conservative Evangelical leader who grovels at his feet? Does he think his congregation, and the younger people in it, are too stupid and ignorant to see this? Or does he think they don't have minds and thoughts of their own, and they simply listen to and believe everything he says?
In fact, among the 16,000 or so members of First Baptist Church of Dallas, there are only about 3,000 of them who attend church regularly, which tells us something about the confidence the rest of the membership has in the truthfulness of what's being delivered from the pulpit on Sundays. So does the fact that fewer than 5% of those actually in attendance on any given Sunday are families with school-aged children or young adults. Why would parents, trying to teach their children to make good choices and introduce them to the Christian gospel attend a church where the pastor bows his knee to a man whose immoral behavior openly contradicts everything they're trying to teach?
But Christians don't have a corner on the morality market. It should not come as a surprise that in a religious denomination where the vast majority of the pastors bow the knee to Trump and tacitly approve of his criminal immorality, there is a widespread sexual abuse scandal involving pastors and staff members of churches. Nor should it come as a surprise that the denominational leadership, because of the provincial, backward way they view women, is stymied in figuring out a way to resolve the problem, because of resistance to even acknowledging it exists, and denying the root causes, and is turning on the victims instead of ministering to them.
The one good thing which may actually come out of the next four years is that American Christianity has an opportunity to redefine itself, and separate itself from this cult that has formed by once again mixing church and state, politics and religion, and has produced nothing of value, but has produced corruption and violence.
So Yeah, I'm Angry!
What we could have done and should have done makes me angry that we did not do it. Had we been bold, and did some outside of the box thinking, setting aside traditional rules and practices like Republicans have done ever since the days of Rush Limbaugh, we could have gotten rid of the filibuster in the Senate, and appointed five additional Supreme Court justices, restored Roe, and over-ruled the ridiculous immunity ruling.
The traditionalists said, "No, we can't do that, because the consequences of doing it would prompt the other side to take advantage of it if they ever got the reins of power back."
Well, the other side got the reins of power back, and they are certainly going to do as much of this sort of thing as they can, including breaking the filibuster, because that's how they do things. We would at least have had our gains, and we could have reset the law to prevent further abuse of it. Whether the other side ever gained power back or not, we could have put Trump on trial, found him guilty of inciting insurrection and prevented him from ever holding public office again. That, I think, would be worth the risk.
I'm angry that we didn't take the risk to save the democracy. Now, the means do not exist to do it.
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