The teetering American democracy

The Congressional committee that was created to inquire into the events of January 6, 2020 (as if an inquiry was needed when the world watched it all happen in real time) has wrapped up its hearings, with a note that they will reconvene in September because they continue to get new information from new people who knew what happened.

As much as I applaud the witnesses for coming forward, sometimes only because they had to respond to a subpoena or face jail for contempt, I cannot help but think that we might never have heard from these people had the former guy won.  They would have happily continued working for him despite the despot that he so achingly wants to be.

Here’s what so damning: If Trump had won in 2020, virtually all of these people who’ve testified in these hearings would still be working for him.

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) July 22, 2022

The day after January 6th, I blogged, of course.

January 6th also became a huge and undeniable piece of evidence that there is no such thing as a good tRump voter.

It is now up to voters to restore American democracy by abandoning candidates who support tRump and trumpism.  Do I have the confidence that Republican voters will put country way, way, way before politics?  Nope.  But, human history has been driven by hope even in situations that were far worse than the state of contemporary American democracy.  Hopeful I will try to be.

The following is the unedited post from January 7, 2020.

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I have no words to describe the events of January 6, 2021.

As shocked and upset I am, I am not surprised even one bit.

Back on March 9, 2016--yes, almost five years ago--when tRump was a candidate in the Republican primaries, I was worried sick that nobody was stopping him.  

I wrote then:

The emergence of Trump as a candidate--and, gasp, as President of the proverbial free world--will only further reinforce the idea that liberal democracies are for pussies!

Oh well, we get the leaders we deserve!

One after another, Republican "leaders" embraced the demagogue.  A friendly couple who were dead set against him decided that they would after all vote for him holding their noses.  Across the street, neighbors became jubilant tRump red-hatters.

It was easy to see what kind of a president he would be because he was always transparent about his motives and actions.  That is why even one of the commenters--who herself later voted for him!--wrote in her comment:

In a recent conversation with my dad, I speculated how much Trump would use executive orders to get his way. I can't imagine Congress giving him everything, or even half of what, he wants, and it seems his personality to respond with an executive order. (In ways he reminds me of a toddler in a sandbox, preferring to go home rather than share his toys.) Can't you hear it now? "Congress didn't pass my ban on Muslim immigrants so I will use executive order." He'll say that he is following the will of the people since the people elected him. I wonder how long it takes to initiate impeachment proceedings?

Even that tRump voter--with whom I ended my association because there is no such thing as a good tRump voter--could see eight months before the election, and ten months before the inauguration, that he would be impeached.  

And he was.

However, his enablers in the Senate acquitted him, thereby giving him a free pass to do even more damage.  He gladly took up the second lease on his presidency, and continued with his assault on democracy all the way through January 6, 2021.