Oaths

First day of Jan. 6 hearings affirms self-government

We have now had the first day of hearings by the special House Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. And for me it is possible to draw hope from it. This is paradoxical because the hearing ranged from sober to chilling and because the events it was examining were both intellectually and visually repugnant. It is plain now that the January 6, attack was not just an attack or a riot. It really was an insurrection, and a planned and organized one.

It was the last prong in a plan to overturn the election — a plan that was more coherent and not nearly so half-baked as many of us first thought. The idea was to apply pressure on the vice president to not certify the election and to send the results back to the swing states that were “close” (most of them were not). And then to pressure state officials to pick new electors. That action probably would never have made it through the courts, but it might have sent the election to the House, which would have elected Donald Trump.

The function of the mob was to pressure Mike Pence in a way that the president (who told Pence that if he didn’t buckle Mr. Trump didn’t want to be his friend any more) could not. That veiled Mafia-like threat worked on many Republicans, and still works. It did not work on Mr. Pence, who may emerge from the whole saga a quiet American hero, regardless of what one may think of his politics or political prospects.

So:

— January 6, was an attack on democracy itself.

— It was no accident.

— It was organized and fomented by Donald Trump himself, in order to retain power, illegally and undemocratically.

And if people got hurt along the way — Mike Pence being lynched by the mob, for example — it was not only something Trump could live with, but something he could approve.

I suppose we will never know, I doubt the man himself knows, what drove him so blindly. Yes, of course he wanted power. Powerful men always want to keep power and get more. But at the expense of the system itself? The country itself?

I don’t think Trump ever understood the system, his function within it, or the country as a complex whole. And he wasn’t interested in learning.

That’s another paradox: Trump was willing to destroy his presidency to retain it.

And a third paradox: Much as he wanted the title and the trappings, he never focused on doing the WORK of a president. And now he clearly has zero interest in policy.

Or maybe he figured retaining the presidency was the only way to avoid prosecution for various crimes he is accused of committing, large and small, past and present. That would at least be rational.

But to have been this reckless and this selfish is stunning, even for Trump. He is a narcissist to be sure; a sociopath, certainly; but far worse than these things, he is a nation wrecker.

For none of his alleged crimes is as great as his violation of his oath: “… to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I don’t know which was more outlandish and physically nauseating, the rioters chanting “USA, USA”; or Mr. Trump saying there was “love in the air,” during the rampage; or his invocation of the Constitution when he sent the insurrectionists down Pennsylvania Avenue to trash the citadel of our democracy, and anyone in it who was not perceived as being on the mob’s side.

In 2016, it was possible to think that Donald Trump might possess the skills to make a decent president, though, once elected, half of the country and half of the Congress would not accept him and would do all they could to make him fail. (Just as it was with Barack Obama early in his term. Both men were duly elected, represented people who’d been ignored and forgotten, and deserved something better than the cry of illegitimacy and constant sabotage from the other side.)

But after his first impeachment trial, it was clear that Donald Trump did NOT have the skills or the character to do the job.

And after January 6, and the failed second impeachment, it became clear that Mr. Trump was something far worse than a Warren Harding who could not perform his duties and had no interest in doing so. He was and is a threat to the very core values of the republic: the peaceful transfer of power, respect for the rule of law, and the restraint of governmental, especially executive, power.

Trump fulfilled the worst prophesies of the most hard-core Trump haters: He did become an existential threat to our democratic republic.

Who knows whether Mr. Trump was anti-democratic all along or if he slipped more and more into his strong man persona as time passed. As Liz Cheney, another hero, noted, his rhetoric has actually grown more and more extreme. But the attempted coup was Fascistic and the Trump cult, at this point is, as well.

Strength over democracy; the leader over the law; the mob over the vote, majority rule and minority rights — that’s fascism.

As Cheney said, the committee has to show the country the choice: Set the worship of raw power and political violence next to liberty and self- government, for all to plainly see and choose.

The committee, with its discipline, seriousness and dignity, is off to a good start. What we watched was not the usual Congressional preening and posturing, such as we have seen with recent Supreme Court nominations. This was a hearing worthy of the stakes and the oath that all federal employees and members of Congress take. It is actually a stronger oath than the presidential oath: “… to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …” and “bear true faith and allegiance to the same …”.