This morning Australia time, Chairman Bennie Thompson closed the fourth of what will be seven public hearings of the select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
Like the name given to the committee, the term “hearing” is a misnomer.
Instead, the committee has constructed a multimedia presentation for the public — and the Department of Justice investigators who are tuning in — broadcasting the evidence it has collected over the past year from more than 1000 interviews and 100,000 documents, emails and text messages.
The display is augmented by live and predominantly Republican witnesses recalling what they say caused an insurrectionist mob to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election by storming the Capitol building in Washington DC.
The hearing will also investigate how the storming of the Capitol was just one element of a seven-part plan devised by then president Trump and senior members of his staff and campaign to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. Plus, how the threat posed to democracy by those same forces continues to this day.
Viewers have so far been read into the astounding degree of attention and resources the Department of Justice spent investigating claims that Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, described during hearing three as “nonsense”, “silly” and “bullshit”. It’s a verdict the former AG delivered multiple times to Trump when he was president, as he simultaneously was receiving the same hard truth from his campaign leadership, the state election officials overseeing the multiple recounts and audits, and the courts, which were tossing out the campaign’s suits for lack of basis or evidence.
Yet Trump kept repeating these lies, and his followers trusted him. It is this same principle — repetition — that the committee seeks to use to deprogram Americans who still believe such falsehoods.
It was the committee’s juxtaposition in the second hearing of claims that Trump was repeatedly told were false — say, the suitcase full of votes in Georgia — with spliced video of violent insurrectionists repeating them as cause for their presence at the Capitol on January 6 that brought home the depth of Trump’s betrayal.
It is a betrayal not of Democrats or never-Trump Republicans or independents, but of those who gave their heart to the man, who donated to his campaign, who came to the Capitol when he called and who, because of that, have copped fines or even jail time — while their leader, so far at least, walked away.
This is the most important and delicate of the committee’s tasks: finding a way to talk to, and about, the roughly 30% of Americans Trump took for a ride.
Yes, it’s doubtful their minds will be changed such that they stand up at the next family dinner and proclaim mea culpa — that’s never going to happen. But if the intensity of their preoccupation with the former president can be reduced, and allegiance to his false and distorted worldview weakened, they might stop sharing disinformation and threatening election workers with violence.
This is not the committee’s only public-facing agenda. The other is to paint the risks convincingly enough that if the Department of Justice can bring itself to lay criminal charges against the former president, the 37% of Americans who are telling pollsters they oppose such a move will at least desist from rioting in the street.
Certainly, that seems to be the endgame for Republican vice-chair of the committee Liz Cheney, who uses key phrases from federal statutes to describe Trump’s misdeeds. Cheney seems determined to drive a stake through Trump’s political future by demanding legal consequences for turning the Republican Party into what she labelled in hearing four as a cesspit of “conspiracy theories and thug violence”.
She had better hurry. CNN reported last week that Donald Trump is already agitating to announce his 2024 presidential campaign before the November midterms.
The Constitution is currently a dead hand on the politics of the USA.
Currently the US has a tyranny of the minority…mainly thanks to a Senate that was put in place by a minority the Founding Fathers …To ensure that the real control of the country did not pass too easily to the masses was the real concern of many of the attendees at the Constitutional Convention.
The Constitution was framed to protect the landed and wealthy of the then original 13 Colonies. It was written by the Founding Fathers to ensure that such landholdings, which in then what what was to become the USA were the wealth of the country, would be left in the hands of those already owning such. In fact many of the Founding Fathers were those very people.
One was Elbridge Gerry, from Massachusetts and the creator of the Gerrymander a creation of the USA. Used n the US by both parties but much more evident now inits use by the GOP, together with voter disenfranchisement and suppression.
Gerry contended that “the commercial and monied interest would be more secure in the hands of the State Legislature than of the people at large”
Then there is John Dickinson, from Delaware, said at one time to be possibly then the richest man in the former Colonies. He contended that senators should be “distinguished for their rank in life and their weight of property” and “such characters more likely to be selected by the State Legislatures, than in any other mode”
The staggering of Senators terms would also ensure that “popular clamors” as it was phrased would not turn into Senate majorities.
Another way keep hoi polloi out was by wealth. Charles Pinckney, from South Carolina believed no salary should be allowed to Senators, as the Senate “was meant to represent the wealth of the Country.
Now here is something that will be a shock to those in the US who do not know their own history, as it appears so obvious on Quora submissions.
For who do you think made a statement along the lines of ensuring that all government service should be voluntary to guarantee the election of independently wealthy men to every office?
Alexander Hamilton*, in an address that lasted the good part of a day brought up the divide between ” mass of the people” and “the rich and well born” Interesting as he was in fact of illegitimate birth. though striving to be rich.
But he knew on which side his bread was buttered. He argued that government needed to strike a balance between these two classes. Since “the people seldom judge or determine right” it was especially important to keep them in check.
Hamilton’s plan was to have the President and the Senate initially elected, but then to serve life terms. He wanted a system more than somewhat similar to that in the UK albeit with an initially elected monarch and an initially elected House of Lords. Interesting to think what US history would have been like if that plan had got up. There would probably have been another Revolution at some time.
*That is why I am not interested in “Hamilton the Musical”, as it fails to portray Hamilton as the nasty piece of work that he really was!
Ian Millhiser, writing in Vox, calculates that if you add up the population of states and assign half to each of their two senators, “the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.”
41.5 million, more than 10 % of the population in fact c 12.5%, close to 1/8th!
You might think that in a democracy, the party that held that much of an advantage might end up with a solid majority in the Senate, rather than have just barely eked out a 50-50 tie in a body that, taken together, represents the whole country.
Republicans have not won the majority of the votes cast in all Senate races in any election cycle for a long time. Nonetheless, Republicans held majority control of the Senate after the elections of 2014, and 2016 and 2018 and still, after the 2020 races, held 50 of the 100 seats.
The problem in the USA is that though it says United, the States of America are not, so across such much needed legislation, many people, mostly GOP oriented , but some from the Democratic Party, will clutch at their pearls and scream “State’s Rights!”
There are two things needed to occur to bring the USA out of the 18thC into at least the 20thC.
The Electoral College needs be reformed or the US moves to The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Also new legislation akin to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, a combined census and apportionment bill passed by the United States Congress 18 June 1929, that established a permanent method for apportioning a constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to each census.
In 1929 the population of the USA was c. 122 million with 48 states it is now c.331 million now with 50 states to which must be added the Federal District of Columbia and the Territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Island.
Almost a century on the USA has over twice the the population but with still only 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Thanks for that, HM. I can’t believe someone downvoted you – maybe they can’t read more than a few paragraphs at a time.
And then other Western nations worship this dysfunctional state as ‘the leader of the free world’. What a joke. And then the US has the hide to criticise (and covertly or overtly undermine) the electoral systems of other nations.
The USA has done far more damage as evident in
Killing Hope: US and CIA Interventions since WWII/ William Blum/2004
Common Courage Press:MNE. USA: ISBN: 9781567512526 LC JK468.I6 B59
An A-Z of the countries that the USA has interfered with in the name of “freedom” by assassinations, coups, meddling in internal politics, supporting dictators, jihadis, terrorists or just plain straight out invasion…
Afghanistan 1979-1992: 2003-
Australia 1973-1975 and still meddling
Albania 1949-1953, 1991
Angola 1975 to 1980s
Bolivia 1964-1975
Brazil 1961-1964
British Guiana 1953-1964
Bulgaria 1990
Cambodia 1955-1973
Chile 1964-1973
China 1945 to 1960s
Congo 1960-1964
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Cuba 1959 to present
Dominican Republic 1960-1966
El Salvador 1980-1994
East Timor 1975
Ecuador 1960-1963:
France/Algeria 1960s
Germany 1950s
Ghana 1966:
Greece 1947-1950s:1964-1974
Grenada 1979-1984
Guatemala 1953-1954:1960-1980s
Haiti 1959-1963: 1986-1994
Indonesia 1957-1958: 1975
Iran 1953: 1979-
Iraq 1990-1991: 2003-
Italy 1947-1970s
Jamaica1976-1980
Korea 1945-1953
Laos 1957-1973
Libya 1981-1989 and still meddling
Morocco 1983
Nicaragua 1978-1990-
Panama 1969-1991
Peru 1960-1965
Philippines:1940s and 1950 but also early 20th century
Seychelles 1979-1981
Suriname 1982-1984
Syria 1956-1957: 2009-
Uruguay 1964-1970
Venezuala 1895.1908-1935, 1948-58, 2002-
Vietnam 1950-1975
To such an extent that it assisted in the removal of a democratically elected government by initiating the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975 with help from Governor General Kerr, who was not only the Queen’s representative, but part of the Anglo American intelligence establishment.
The CIA link in the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975 is very clear for Governor General Kerr, who was not only the Queen’s representative, but part of the Anglo American intelligence establishment.
He was leading light in the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, “The Crimes of Patriots: as “an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”.
The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA
Jonathan Kwitny
W. W. Norton & Company: New York, NY; 1987 ISBN:9780393336658
LC: HG3448.N846 K95 1987 LC:JQ4029.S4 T66 2019
What has also come to light recently is that the then chief of CIA Counterintelligence from 1954 to 1975, James Jesus Angleton, in the year before the Dismissal had already wanted to have the Whitlam Government removed from power.
Brian Toohey relates this in his book, SECRET*… he obtained such information from John Denley Walker the CIA chief of station in Australia during the Whitlam years… which is also confirmed… as Angleton said so in an interview with the ABC’s Correspondant’s Report in 1977.
SECRET The Making of Australia’s Security State
Brian Toohey
Melbourne University Press. 2019
ISBN 9780522872804
LC:JQ4029.S4 T66 2019
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And see Gore Vidal’s “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace”.
“The Founding Fathers were not interested in democracy, in fact, in a country with 3 1/4 million people, which is about what we were at the time of the separation from the UK only 700,000 people could vote — white males of property. So it’s never been terribly democratic. …and they put together a constitution which would protect property for all time. No nonsense about democracy!”
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia” Documentary, 2013.
It’s a weird democracy where the president can veto decisions made by congress, where the president cannot be indicted, so is free to break the law if it’s convenient, and where the president can pardon his cronies no matter what crimes they’ve committed.
In fact, the president was given, and still has powers rather like those which George III was in the process of losing.
It all began with slave owners declaring that they held that all men were created equal.
The USA, many of its citizens will say. is a Republic, not a democracy.
The argument against a democracy made by many of the so called Founding Fathers was nothing short of a tyranny of the majority
A Senate, which until in the early part of the 20th century was not elected, Its members were selected by whatever group had control of a state’s legislature. It was there to protect the landed and wealthy class, as James Madison, a two term President of the USA and who was one of the major proponents of the Bill of Rights said this concerning the establishment of the US Senate and it was clearly anti democratic, it was “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”*
*Statement (1787-06-26) as quoted in Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 by Robert Yates.
An Electoral College which was constituted to give citizens in less populated and economically unproductive rural states with as many as four times the votes as those as those in more populous and economically productive urban ones, thereby violating the fundamental democratic principle of “one person, one vote;” It can also be alleged that the college was originally instituted and continues to be maintained for explicitly racist and anti-democratic purposes.
The loser of the popular vote has won the electoral college only five times before 2000. The last time such happened was in the mid 1800’s, long before universal franchise.
Now it’s happened twice in 16 years and has enabled, inarguably, the two worst presidents in modern American history, both Republican. Dubya, The Faux Texan and as the Scots have it The Radge Orange Bampot!
And now thanks to the above the US has a tyranny of the minority.
That was a tour de force. Amazing. Thank you.
Thank you Leslie, but I owe much to Malcolm Mackerras, when he was lecturing at UNSW Canberra, ADFA, he aroused my interest in US politics
For as a psephologist he also had a great interest and knowledge in US politics and their strange electoral processes.
Since the situation is that” 37% of Americans … are telling pollsters they oppose such a move” – demands that the other 63% vote for candidates who will support democracy. But it is astounding the number of GOP supporters on record as saying that they don’t support the insurrection or Trump’s lies, but will nonetheless vote for a MAGA GOP candidate in the upcoming midterms.
Trump didn’t ‘walk away’ from the Capitol riots. He rode away on a white charger, illuminated by the setting sun while several bald eagles held the American flag over his head, and an angelic choir sang the Star Spangled Banner. At least that’s what I heard on Sky After Dark…
I have no optimism that American can save itself from its ‘freedom’ lunacy. Whilst there are a lot of very intelligent Americans, there are also an extraordinary number of really dumb Americans. And the dumb ones shape the lunacy of the majority of Republican members of congress, governors and state houses; ie the ‘radical left’ (The Democrats, generally as left as moderate Libs) must be denied power by violence and cheating. That and victimising minorities. It is democracy trying to mimic fascism and supported by 37%, the probable portion of the selfishly greedy, racist idiots. With that number of idiots, political and social redemption are improbable.
The role of race can never be underestimated in US politics. It’s worth reading “Democracy in Chains” by Nancy McLean on how racism in the South was a key factor in the development of neo-liberal economics – through the agency of James McGill Buchanan.
It’s a cultural thing. The US was (and remains) a frontier society. They’ve never grown up. Characterised by individualism, paranoia, violence, arrogance, exceptionalism – these inform its policies, both domestic and foreign.
Even a convict and colonial settler society like Australia can mature (albeit imperfectly) into a society that understands the advantages of communalism (Medicare) and public safety (gun control).
So in the US their schoolkids regularly get mowed down by crazies with legal machine guns, and their infant mortality rate is worse than poor countries like Cuba. When the wealthiest society that’s ever existed on the face of the earth is not interested in keeping its own kids alive, it’s clearly a failed state and should be bombed and invaded by the rest of us. Isn’t that what they call ‘the rules-based international order’?
Are all Americans mad gunslingers? Or just 30% of them?