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Will he be back? Credit: Seth Herald/Getty
A perfect rerun of the political battles of the Trump presidency is being fought in the January 6 House Select Committee hearings. On one side is Trump, guilty of idiocy, egregious lack of judgment, indifference to constitutional norms, and of pursuing — but coming nowhere close to carrying out — an absurd scheme to undo the 2020 election results. On the other side are his opponents on the committee and their allies in the media, engaged in what they claim is a noble defence of democracy but what is, in most cases, run-of-the-mill partisan warfare.
A basic story emerges from the hearings. The headline is that Trump’s legal attempts to overturn or otherwise invalidate the results of the 2020 election, culminating in his supporters’ storming of the Capitol on January 6, amounted to an “attempted coup” meant to “overthrow the U.S. government,” in the words of committee chairman Bennie Thompson.
Chatter about a “coup”, however, is mostly a question of semantics. For all the focus in the hearings on the Trump team’s inane plans to block Biden’s election victory — a draft executive order (never issued) calling on the Department of Justice to seize voting machines, a draft DOJ letter (never sent) alleging election irregularities in Georgia, lawyer John Eastman’s theory that Mike Pence had the Constitutional authority to toss out the results — the actual crime the committee is trying to pin on Trump is “incitement” of a riot, rather than “seditious conspiracy” or some other charge befitting an attempt to overthrow the government. Hence the focus of last Tuesday’s hearing on Trump’s tweets, which, the committee claimed, convinced his extremist supporters that the president wanted them to commit violence in his name.
But while Trump’s rhetoric was irresponsible, incitement is a difficult crime to prosecute thanks to the First Amendment. Trump never directly ordered anyone to storm the Capitol, so he is likely in the clear, legally if not morally. Indeed, the committee’s purpose is probably less to fish for criminal charges than to put Trump and the events of January 6 back at the centre of the national conversation at a time when the Democrats are facing political headwinds. As the New York Times reported shortly before the hearings started, “Democrats argue the hearings will give them a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.” The article quoted a political consultant who had run focus groups on Democratic “base surge voters” and “swing voters” and found that for both groups, “Jan. 6 is very much salient and highly negative.”
And for everyone else? According to a recent Harvard/Harris poll, while narrow majorities blame Trump for the Capitol riot, narrow majorities also regard the hearings as “partisan” and “biased”, 56% believe the Capitol riot was a “protest that turned violent” (versus 44% who think it was an “armed insurrection”), 63% believe Congress should be investigating other issues rather than focusing on January 6, and 67% believe the hearings are “further dividing the country”. (For what it’s worth, 61% of voters would prefer that Trump not run again in 2024.) Partisan splits on all of these questions are what you’d expect, with most of the margin accounted for by independents.
The committee’s main problem is that it is an entirely one-sided affair, which means that it is having trouble convincing anyone who is not already convinced. Normally, a House select panel would include members of the minority party who could ask questions, cross-examine witnesses, and generally challenge the assertions of the majority. This committee does have two Republicans, but both were selected by Nancy Pelosi for their anti-Trump bona fides. The majority of House Republicans boycotted the committee — unwisely — when Pelosi refused to seat two of their nominees on the grounds that both had objected to the certification of the 2020 election (something they have in common with Democratic committee member Jamie Raskin, who objected to certification in 2016.)
Absent any opposition, the committee has been an odd mix of Congressional hearing and partisan political documentary. I mean the second part literally: the committee recruited a television executive, former ABC News President James Goldston, to craft the hearings into a “disciplined, captivating summer series” built around a “taut, colourful narrative with a prosecutor’s precision and a cinematographer’s flair”, according to Axios’s Mike Allen. While the committee has deposed hundreds of witnesses, their testimony has been released only in scripted appearances before the panel, carefully curated video snippets, and leaks to friendly media. No transcripts have been made available to the public, and so the committee releases only the information that appears to bolster its narrative while ignoring the rest, safe in the assumption that criticism will mostly be confined to the Right-wing press.
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SubscribeThe US elections are actually very hard to “steal”, since they’re actually run at the local and state levels with almost no federal involvement.
That said, in a time of hyper-polarization, it seems everyone would be laser focused on making sure elections not only WERE secure, but appears to be secure as well. I would suggest the following truly revolutionary idea:
I know, I know, I’m racist. I’m a horrible person. I’m a bigot and a hater. And I probably torture small animals for fun too. But if we’re serious about having a system that no one can reasonably question the validity of an election, it’s not hard. The fact that one major political party in America is so resistant to this ought to be a huge red flag to everyone (even members of that party.)
I agree with all points.
Especially, the danger of postal voting is being underestimated.
It cannot be a secret ballot. You have no idea who is in the room with the named voter, who sees the vote before it is posted or even if the named voter is the one marking the ballot.
People are losing confidence in democracy as a result.
The Democrat Party wants the electorate to lose confidence so they can come in and ‘fix things’, ie packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the Electoral college, disallowing integrity at the voting booth – pushing ballot harvesting, mail-in voting, extended vote times, banishing ID requirements, etc. This is the Democrat Election Dream. This is what they are counting on because they can’t get their policies through otherwise.
I couldn’t agree more Peter. I thought Unherd was about offering fresh perspectives and encouraging more ‘open’ thinking but it seems there are just as many axes being grinded here as elsewhere in the media.
Never mind, look at valley.the red ticks you have. No doubt Trump supporters out to ruin your life
Not “valley”, “at all” it should read. Edit function won’t work
When the cooks insist you keep out of the kitchen, know they’re not proud of what goes on in there.
Not a “red flag” to progressive ideologues who demonstrate repeatedly their willingness to suppress democracy in pursuit and and maintenance of power. Because they are righteous, and those who disagree are immoral.
How about outlawing ballot harvesting at the same time. Have you seen Dinesh Desouza’s 2000 Mules?
Spot on!
Very sensible; and no doubt why none of those things will be acceptable to all the usual suspects.
Management expert Peter Drucker said:
The idea that there are “well-rounded” people, people who have only strengths and no weaknesses . . . is a prescription for mediocrity if not for incompetence. Strong people always have strong weaknesses too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys.
He was not, but could have been, talking about Donald Trump. When I think about all that Donald Trump did in his four years in office, and compare it to what Joe Biden has done in his four decades, there is no comparison. The man has his faults, but boy do his strengths make up for them.
What was incredible about the Trump presidency was the success of the campaign to make Trump an international bogeyman. It seemed as if every child in the U.K. from the age of seven and up knew Trump’s name and that he was a very bad, frightening, dangerous man – his name was accompanied by a shiver of horror (part of the leftist school agenda). Very few children can now name the president of the United States or could before. The only other president whose name was as well known amongst children in the U.K. was Kennedy, though Obama probably came close as he was initially perceived to be some kind of messiah.
You make a good point.
My 12 year old boy doesn’t give a fig about politics (as you would expect), but he started coming home from school complaining about how bad Trump was.
I’m fairly sure his teachers must have been showing the kids some BBC/C4 unfavorable ‘news’ news items in their tutor group (free learning) lessons, about how orange man bad.
What underlies this terror? The terror Trump epitomises for those who demonise him.
Yep, my (then) nine-year-old nephew told me he didn’t like Trump and, when asked by me what his reasons were, that this was because Trump was stupid.
Though he did not know exactly what Trump’s job was, of course, but he did know that he was American.
I spoke to his teacher and requested that she cease indoctrinating the children in her care.
Good to know real men still exist, but, on a more serious note, the extent of the indoctrination and it’s impact is neither appreciated nor understood.
When I was a child, I’d say the majority of the children thought most Americans were stupid.
You have no idea…
People understand what public schools can do to children if it’s framed with schools in the soviet union or in 1930s Germany, but are barely capable of beginning to grasp that our (UK) are JUST AS ideological comprimised.
It’s just that we choose not to see this ideology in its entireity because we’re already partially indoctrinated with it and think we can pick and choose the parts we do and don’t like.
You’ve seen the tip of the iceberg with what they’ve done to your son, it was bad enough 10 years ago.
I didn’t vote for either Trump or Hillary in 2016. Like many, many folks I know, I am still less than thrilled by his personality, but can’t fault his results. And Joe Biden was waaay past his sell-by date years before 2020. The parade of unforced errors and idiotic policies since January 2021 is proof of that.
I wrote off Joe Biden as a hack and mediocrity in 1988 and absolutely nothing has changed my opinion in the interim. It deteriorated: add corruption and quasi-senescence to the Biden baggage.
Biden has inadvertently made a number of racist statements in the past which make you wonder where his head is. His comments about Indians (from India) working at 7/11, that ‘you’re not black unless you vote Democrat’, his wonky story about Cornpop and lecturing black kids at the poolside, ‘they’re going to put you all in chains’….and more. The miraculous thing is that blacks still voted for him because they know it’s all about the Obama phones. Biden is past his pull date for sure.
If you care to *imagine* that the Democratic party, or at least its top movers and shakers, are now part of a political machine that has targeted the ‘drain the swamp’ populist outsider then a great deal of the shenanigans during the Trump presidency (and after) make sense. There’s a narrative that must be enforced to protect the elites’ position and wealth.
That people arrested on 6 January 2021 have been held in prison since then, in uncivilized conditions, just shows how far the political machine has departed from acceptable norms.
The DC elite are now eliding their method of holding on to a monopoly of political control with that of Stalin and his show trials.
No MSM journalist accused Hillary Clinton of “insurrection” when she claimed Trump stole the 2016 election from her, and that he was therefore “illegitimate”. This was of no surprise to anyone, because the public understood already that the media were partisan to the point of being an effective propaganda arm of the Democrats.
The anti-Trump insurrection of course took place in Democrat -controlled Congress, with the collusion of their operatives at the FBI and other deep state agencies, who held a months long show trial to impeach Trump with paid-for fraudulent “evidence” and testimony of an anonymous “whistle-blower.” They successfully tied Trump’s hands to limit his credibility and ability to act as the elected President he was.
And it was all carried out “to make America safe for democracy.” That was not the mission of under-cover Fed activist Ray Epps, who is on tape repeatedly invoking the Jan 6 crowd to invade the Capitol building. He is of no interest to the Jan 6 panel and their latest show trial, and is proclaimed a “victim” now in the pages of the New York Times. They are at least loyal to their own, and close ranks when anyone attempts to speak truth to their power.
The writer seems cautious with the truth here, knowing that too much could bar him from a continued journalistic career, and is careful to preface it with required dismissive anti-Trump rhetoric. This is where we are now.
Indeed. He comes to the edge of leveling with the reader. One gets the impression that for many even well-meaning journalists, the chasm of naked impropriety that was the 2020 election, and its implications, are too much the bear. We are the USA, cheeseburgers and nukes, try and stop us, and yet we can topple ourselves with the most incompetent of geriatric boobs. Who needs supervillains?
The real problem with understanding the 2020 election is that the “evidence” has never really been heard by any court. Challenges have been tossed, even by the Supreme Court for procedural reasons, ie., “Lack of Standing”. There are statistical abnormalities are are yet unexplained, there has never been a REAL full forensic audit of the vote in swing states. Watch Dinesh DeSousa’s Documentary “2000 Mules” for good documentary evidence or “irregularities” that could be easily proven, if a prosecutor would just pursue the case. Stacy Abrams and Hillary Clinton both refused to concede their elections, because they knew the system was rigged in their favor and truly believe they won. This in no way excuses the “riot” of January 6, but the punishment of the accused by no means rises to the level of their punishment.
I am increasingly convinced that the US is not part of The Western World, proper. It is a banana republic, with a great mass of droogs ruled by an obscenely rich overclass.
It’s certainly becoming that way.
Don’t worry, the rest of us are right behind.
Banana republic, yer arse. How art thou, poliwalidoodle reduxus, thou globby bottle of cheap stink’n chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, ya eunuch jelly thou!
I think you might find it never was and that its mission was to set itself up in opposition to Europe
The controversy over the Wisconsin election BALLOT BOXES demonstrates yet again that the difference between a “conspiracy theory” and “news” is frequently about six months. In this case, 18 months. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin finds (July 8th 2022) that the provision of “drop-boxes” for collecting ballots in the US elections in Nov 2020 was indeed unlawful, as the Trump team had claimed: https://tinyurl.com/2bk8rk7k But nullius in verba (“don’t take anyone’s word for it” : here’s a copy of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin’s full judgement: https://tinyurl.com/26skmp9w And here is why the finding will not lead to any reversal of the election result, notwithstanding the finding in favour of Trump’s original allegations (or, to use the mainstream press’s favourite description, Trump’s “baseless” allegations: https://tinyurl.com/4kpxbrh8
Okay so many people would prefer that Trump not run. They are truly upset by his style – particularly name-calling his enemies. Do note, Trump never referred negatively or disparagingly to the electorate that numerous Democrats have – Hillary’s ‘deplorables’, Obama’s ‘they cling to their Bibles’, Biden’s challenge to union workers, ‘ I am smarter than you’, etc. For the first time in ages, Trump came out swinging and the Left and many on the right just didn’t have the stomach for it. That said, millions of less fortunate people did because everything counts for them, their jobs, family, etc. A huge F-YOU factor exists out there that’s aimed at the ruling elites which no doubt will play an essential role if Trump is to be re-elected. The January 6 hearing just fans the flames, which just goes to show how tone deaf the powers-that-be are to the needs of a large swath of American citizens.
Soviet style show trial pure and simple
This current wave of Trump Delusion Syndrome only serves to remind us of the dichotomy of American society from day one.
As Dr Samuel Johnson ( no relation) so politely put it a few years ago, “How is it that the loudest yelps for liberty come from the drivers of Negroes?”
The Republicans were wise to not participate in this highly staged show – doing so would have provided a modicum of legitimacy which it subsequently lacks. Likely their cross examination of Hutchinson would not have made MSM news and what exactly is to be gained by challenging the veracity of hearsay of hearsay testimony?
Better to let the Democrats drag this out until Nov – it makes them look partisan and tone deft with all the other major problems in the US.
Americans aren’t stupid. They know these televised committee hearings are nothing more than a show trial designed to scare the populace from rising up against them. The Democrat party is deeply unpopular. Right now it has zero support except from the usual zealots.
Who could possibly believe that Biden won a free and fair election?
If the credibility of US elections is the problem, how does refusing to seriously investigate an allegation of fraud, however ridiculous it may be, solve the problem? For the record, I don’t believe there is anyone that could steal a US election. As others have pointed out, they are so chaotic, so unstandardized, so controlled by local authorities, that any scheme to rig a Presidential election one way or the other would be the most complicated plan ever implemented by anyone for any purpose, ever. I doubt even the most genius criminal mind could conceive, let alone implement, such a plan. Nobody, however, is making that argument. One side is just shouting insurrection and spinning an out of control riot into some sort of attempted coup (If it was, it was the most pathetic failure of an attempt in history), hoping by using scary words that Americans are only used to hearing about in faraway places that fear will trump reason, pardon the pun. Just another instance of poor leaders attempting to use cheap tactics to sway voters because they have so little in the way of actual leadership ability or vision. Forget their intentions or policies, I have little faith in their basic competence.
But you don’t need to steal the entire US, just 5 swing states. Consider: The Michigan supreme court ruled that their Attorney General acted illegally by changing the rules for signature validation of mail-in ballots a few weeks before the election. By law these rules are set by the legislature. So what was the result of this illegal act? Who knows? Michigan had 3.5 million mail-in ballots. What if 10% of the Biden votes were accepted due to this action? What if 5% were? That would be 175,000 votes. Biden won the state by 150,000. (Going from memory here but I believe these are the numbers.)
This pattern (Democrat AG or governor overturning the legislature immediately before the election) was commonplace. The Democrat party had a 400 million dollar effort to staff polling places, never been done before. To think all this is purely coincidental with no central planning at some level strains credulity.
IMO we must stop unsolicited mail in balloting. It’s a very different process than what we’ve had for absentee balloting, in which one must first be registered to vote, request an absentee ballot, and there is a chain of custody for your ballot. I think it’s obvious this renders our elections generally invalid.
The writer claims that electoral dirty politics are indulged by both sides…not really. In the past decade, the Democrats have exceeded expectations with their Russia Hoax, faux impeachments, Pelosi dramatically ripping up the state of the Union address and on and on. The Democrats are exhausting the public with all their dirty tricks. We deserve better.
Perhaps you believe you deserve a dictator rather than an elected President. If so, Trump would willingly step into that role.
Certainly the actions of Democrats in Congress suggest that they believe authoritarian rule can be justified when voters make incorrect decisions. Otherwise, how else could they justify the enormous expense in time and money of 6 years of investigations and impeachments into the elected President Trump?
And the ongoing FBI vendetta shows they fear the voters could yet again make wrong decisions in November, and unless they can succeed in a conviction this time, in 2024 as well.
Baseless?
The question to ask after the raid on Trump’s home is what were the documents that Trump too from the White House. If Biden was unaware of the raid, then they presumably don’t concern him or his son. In that case, they are probably proof of Obama’s involvement in authorising the illegal surveillance of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Compared with the ease of getting rid of BJ, we’ve done quite well. Democracy has held up.
Since a Party is elected, not a Prime Minister, in the U.K. system, for the governing party to switch leaders , mid term, as with BJ, is essentially an internal party matter, nothing to do with the U.K. democratic process. US democracy did hold up on January 6, but Trump knows how to fix the system now a lot better than he did before.
From the point of view of a British viewer, Trump’s actions prior to and on January 6 did not look like “idiocy” or “inane” as this article characterises them. They looked like the determined efforts of a man of strong will, but limited intellect, to overcome the US democratic process. The system survived, just about, but Trump is not now a naive freshman to the presidential role but a seasoned and unprincipled previous holder of that role. Americans should be concerned about what damage he could cause if he is elected to a second term in 2024.
I remember some years back, having a few cigs in between courses with Ivana Trump, at Club 55 on the San Tropez beach, whom I had never ever met previously, and whom I did not recognize, until I was told later: she was great fun and very engaging, and we got onto the subject of America and Trump… even she said that he was a staggeringly limited, neo illiterate self publicist….
That seems to contradict many reports, upon her death, how she kept in touch with Trump on a daily basis offering him advice and consultation. Do try to find some of her observations. They are fascinating. Regarding your statement, makes me wonder how much you both had to drink before you got down to dishing?