By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Columnist |
June 5, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
The task before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol this week is to demonstrate that day’s viciousness was not some spontaneous outbreak of mayhem but an organized, radical and dangerous assault on democracy itself.
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And members of the committee must make clear that Donald Trump intentionally and criminally orchestrated these events to hold on to power in defiance of the will of American voters.
When the committee holds the first in a series of public hearings in prime time on Thursday, its members will be fighting uphill against the short attention span of our political and media system. They will also be battling a concerted campaign of distraction by Trump’s supporters and the vast majority of Republican politicians — no matter their real view of Trump — who want to make the threat to our democracy disappear as a public issue.
The particularly chaotic flow of news lately is not in the committee’s favor. The mass killings made possible by our disgracefully weak gun laws, the cost of gas and groceries, Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine, and the overreach of an out-of-control Supreme Court majority all vie for public concern.
Yet our ability to deal with all these issues and many others rests on safeguarding a democratic system in which politicians who lose elections cede office and do not resort to violence to impede the popular will. Nothing less than this is at stake this week.
Consider that even on the eve of the Civil War in 1860, when electoral votes were being counted as slave states began seceding from the union in response to Abraham Lincoln’s election, the process that ratified Lincoln’s victory went forward unimpeded.
Lincoln and his supporters were worried that this would not be the case. As historian Allan Nevins noted, there were fears Virginia might attack the capital. Lincoln was informed, as Nevins wrote, that “a wide and powerful conspiracy to seize Washington undoubtedly existed.”
General Winfield Scott, tasked with guarding the city, would have none of it. “I have said,” he boomed to a visitor, “that any man who attempted by force or unparliamentary disorder to obstruct or interfere with the lawful count of the electoral vote should be lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder and fired out of a window of the Capitol.”
Scott did not have to arrange such a one-way trip, but the nation was not as lucky in 2021 — because Trump refused to accept the outcome of a free and fair election.
He urged a crowd to assail the legal process that would make Joe Biden president, and pressured Vice President Mike Pence to take illegal steps to block Biden electors — fortunately, unsuccessfully — while threatening Pence with the violence of the thugs who assaulted police officers and ripped our seat of government apart. At the same time, Trump plotted to have Republican legislatures set aside the electors the voters had chosen and replace them with pro-Trump slates.
It was a coup attempt, plain and simple.
The committee’s task is to use its precious prime-time slot Thursday to bring home Trump’s lawlessness to the American people. In a compelling way — yes, they need to hold their audience — they must pile the evidence high enough to make Trump’s indictment and prosecution inevitable. We cannot thrive as a free society if public authorities refuse to bring to justice a man who sought to use the power of the presidency and a savage mob to destroy our democratic republic.
To achieve its goals, the committee needs to resist several temptations.
Of course we should change the outdated and easy-to-abuse statutes that govern the counting of electoral votes enacted in 1845 and 1887. Committee members should certainly make recommendations for change, but they cannot allow these public hearings to stray from the central issue: In all the years those laws were in force, only one selfish, immoral and power-hungry politician sought to exploit their imperfections to upend democracy. The focus must stay on Trump.
It’s almost part of the job description that politicians call attention to themselves. I get it. It’s how they win elections. But this is no ordinary hearing. The committee must be disciplined in sticking with its plan to work collectively. Nothing personal should get in the way of laying out the high crimes that were committed — and underscoring the peril our democracy still faces. Grandstanding is for another day.
Lies about the 2020 election are an animating force for an entire faction of the GOP and have been mobilized as a pretext for corrupting the electoral system to smooth the way for a more successful assault on majority rule in the next presidential election. Even in the face of all our other challenges, protecting democracy is our nation’s most important task. The Jan. 6 committee has a narrow but priceless opening to sound the call to battle.
Columnist |
June 5, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
The task before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol this week is to demonstrate that day’s viciousness was not some spontaneous outbreak of mayhem but an organized, radical and dangerous assault on democracy itself.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
And members of the committee must make clear that Donald Trump intentionally and criminally orchestrated these events to hold on to power in defiance of the will of American voters.
When the committee holds the first in a series of public hearings in prime time on Thursday, its members will be fighting uphill against the short attention span of our political and media system. They will also be battling a concerted campaign of distraction by Trump’s supporters and the vast majority of Republican politicians — no matter their real view of Trump — who want to make the threat to our democracy disappear as a public issue.
The particularly chaotic flow of news lately is not in the committee’s favor. The mass killings made possible by our disgracefully weak gun laws, the cost of gas and groceries, Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine, and the overreach of an out-of-control Supreme Court majority all vie for public concern.
Yet our ability to deal with all these issues and many others rests on safeguarding a democratic system in which politicians who lose elections cede office and do not resort to violence to impede the popular will. Nothing less than this is at stake this week.
Consider that even on the eve of the Civil War in 1860, when electoral votes were being counted as slave states began seceding from the union in response to Abraham Lincoln’s election, the process that ratified Lincoln’s victory went forward unimpeded.
Lincoln and his supporters were worried that this would not be the case. As historian Allan Nevins noted, there were fears Virginia might attack the capital. Lincoln was informed, as Nevins wrote, that “a wide and powerful conspiracy to seize Washington undoubtedly existed.”
General Winfield Scott, tasked with guarding the city, would have none of it. “I have said,” he boomed to a visitor, “that any man who attempted by force or unparliamentary disorder to obstruct or interfere with the lawful count of the electoral vote should be lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder and fired out of a window of the Capitol.”
Scott did not have to arrange such a one-way trip, but the nation was not as lucky in 2021 — because Trump refused to accept the outcome of a free and fair election.
He urged a crowd to assail the legal process that would make Joe Biden president, and pressured Vice President Mike Pence to take illegal steps to block Biden electors — fortunately, unsuccessfully — while threatening Pence with the violence of the thugs who assaulted police officers and ripped our seat of government apart. At the same time, Trump plotted to have Republican legislatures set aside the electors the voters had chosen and replace them with pro-Trump slates.
It was a coup attempt, plain and simple.
The committee’s task is to use its precious prime-time slot Thursday to bring home Trump’s lawlessness to the American people. In a compelling way — yes, they need to hold their audience — they must pile the evidence high enough to make Trump’s indictment and prosecution inevitable. We cannot thrive as a free society if public authorities refuse to bring to justice a man who sought to use the power of the presidency and a savage mob to destroy our democratic republic.
To achieve its goals, the committee needs to resist several temptations.
Of course we should change the outdated and easy-to-abuse statutes that govern the counting of electoral votes enacted in 1845 and 1887. Committee members should certainly make recommendations for change, but they cannot allow these public hearings to stray from the central issue: In all the years those laws were in force, only one selfish, immoral and power-hungry politician sought to exploit their imperfections to upend democracy. The focus must stay on Trump.
It’s almost part of the job description that politicians call attention to themselves. I get it. It’s how they win elections. But this is no ordinary hearing. The committee must be disciplined in sticking with its plan to work collectively. Nothing personal should get in the way of laying out the high crimes that were committed — and underscoring the peril our democracy still faces. Grandstanding is for another day.
Lies about the 2020 election are an animating force for an entire faction of the GOP and have been mobilized as a pretext for corrupting the electoral system to smooth the way for a more successful assault on majority rule in the next presidential election. Even in the face of all our other challenges, protecting democracy is our nation’s most important task. The Jan. 6 committee has a narrow but priceless opening to sound the call to battle.
