Stock of Ill Repute

I figured it would be a while before I'd write about the January 6th committee again, but after watching the eighth hearing I felt like getting something off my chest. This might be more of a cathartic diatribe than an analysis, fair warning. Before the first hearing in June, I'd hoped the committee would come out all guns blazing—knowing that if they didn't they would lose their audience: Republicans—my hopes were swiftly dealt with, however, with the monochromatic tone throughout the hearing, promising details and evidence "in the coming weeks." Expectations needed some adjusting; the people who needed to hear the evidence the most—those trapped in right-wing media ecosystems—were not the target audience as I had hoped. The committee's goal was to reach the politically naïve and make sure they see and remember the carnage of the 6th. We may be cautiously optimistic they succeeded by looking at some polls related to the hearings. However, putting aside the problem of conservative voters still deeply entrenched in borderline-fascistic and hateful ideologies, that the left is failing to reach; there is another, more insidious problem brewing beneath the committee's patriotic confection: the legitimization and absolving of repugnant, anti-democratic airheads. The committee has done an excellent job of coloring the tangerine menace in an unflattering shade, but the president is not all-powerful, and for the then-incumbent nightmare to come so close to establishing a redneck junta he needed significant aid. The committee has painted those in the White House's employ as heroic patriots who stood up for democracy at great personal cost. People like Brad Raffensperger, Bill Barr, Cassidy Hutchinson, Pat Cipollone, and Mike Pence all get pats on the back for thinking a gladiatorial coup d'état was one step too far. But all of these people partook in serious efforts to delegitimize the election and enact anti-voting legislation. The republican party wants only to win, even if that means usurping the will of the people. In 2000, Bush declared victory before all votes were counted, when Al Gore refused to concede they started screaming like recalcitrant toddlers that the election was being stolen. They organized the infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" where paid Republican operatives (claiming to be concerned local citizens) stormed the government building in which the votes were being counted to "stop the count," as they were chanting, ballots that mostly came from poor districts with dilapidated voting machines, that overwhelmingly voted Gore. After Republican obstruction and dillydallying the conservative Supreme Court ruled there wasn't enough time to count all the votes before the artificial deadline (a deadline they could have easily met without the stalling). Nothing has changed, these people don't give one iota about democracy; in 2020 there was a massive republican assault on voting rights, and a consorted effort to cast aspersions on votes cast by mail. Kayleigh McEnany—a committee witness, and former White House press secretary—did her part in laying the groundwork by tweeting links to articles, usually from Foxnews, with headlines like: "Nevada's vote-by-mail primary stirs fraud concerns." The articles cited studies suggesting that "vote-by-mail" is the most vulnerable to fraud from all forms of voting. In theory that might be true, but in practice studies show no evidence of widespread fraud; voter fraud, in general, is less than 0.0009% according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice. Barr, for his part, suggested that foreign countries might slip in mail-in ballots. And we should never forget that William Barr also orchestrated the skirmish in Lafayette Square, effectively teargassing the first amendment for a photo op. Mike Pence also claimed that Democrats would use the pandemic to "send millions of ballots all across their states and all across this country," adding that they would "not stand idly by." The committee hailed Mike Pence as a hero for standing up to Trump—the only villain in their story. Donald Trump lit the match, but the powder keg was loaded with sulfur and carbon by the same people who gave him the matchbook. Don't be fooled into thinking they are moderates, they are every bit as extreme and authoritarian as Donald Trump. There is one more thing, forgive my unprofessionalism, that I have to get off my chest. When witnesses say they were saddened by the insurrection because they had been proud of all the good work they had been doing... I need a citation. And don't say something opaque like "foreign policy," be specific. As long as I'm on a rant, I would also like to suggest that Stephanie Murphy—the representative who referred to Vietnam as a communist country—read up on communism. phew... sorry about that. I needed to let off some steam.