That Should Have Been the Second Impeachment Trial
The January 6 Committee did what Nancy Pelosi should have done.
Let me say, first of all, my opinion about the January 6 riot has not changed. I do not believe it was a credible insurrection attempt. It was a bunch of idiots cosplaying as patriots who had no real endgame other than disruption of government. They never had any chance of success and I believe even they knew it.
That said, I also suspect that there are very few people who believe that Trump wasn’t guilty of egging it on. He, like those LARPers, wanted to disrupt the proceedings, still bitter over a loss he couldn’t accept. What the committee did last night proved that, in my mind, and it’s frankly shocking that House Democrats, given what we now know they knew, didn’t pursue that harder.
Nancy Pelosi proved herself incapable of being a leader anymore. The Democrats on the committee by and large proved themselves far more capable of leading their party and, had they done it right, probably would have had a more successful second impeachment attempt against Trump had they gone about it this way back in 2021. But, instead, Nancy Pelosi rushed articles to the floor without any sort of investigation. That was just foolish.
Liz Cheney, whatever conservatives (including me) think about her rhetoric since January 6, did a good job of laying out the case against Trump. The problem is that Democrats were so eager to get out what they were discovering about January 6, 2021, that they leaked all the good stuff out ahead of time. There was very little that was new or damning that we didn’t already know, and the narrative that was laid out last night showed that these agents of chaos were not peaceful protestors caught up in a bad situation, and they weren’t Antifa sneaking in to make conservatives and Trump look bad. They were legitimately trying to disrupt the certification of the election.
The Democrats chose to make this a series of public hearings, rather than hiring a prosecutor to investigate and lay this out in a damning report. They wanted a spectacle more than they wanted justice, and it showed in the presentation. There was a 10-minute opening statement from a Democrat that wasted time and attention span. It squandered the time they had to lay out their case. Cheney, thankfully, went right into it, in an attempt to save whatever audience was left.
We see now what we’ve known all along: No one who touted the “stolen election” claims actually believed it was stolen. Via Erick Erickson on Substack this morning:
As for the evidence, the most important thing is this — from Sean Hannity to Mark Meadows to Ivanka Trump and so many points in between, they all knew the election was not stolen. So much of the public bravado over the election being stolen was a lie. In private, in their text messages, or under oath, they knew it was not stolen. So many people have been so misled by a few people who wanted to be close to fading power.
Not that those masses who were misled would actually stop thinking it. They did not watch the hearing and they don’t intend to stop believing that their guy actually, legitimately lost.
But that’s probably the bigger issue in all of this: These hearings probably did not convince anyone new of anything. Those who believe Trump tried to overthrow the government will continue to think that. Those who think the election was stolen will continue to think that. And, of course, there are people who watched what happened on January 6 (and may have watched last night’s committee hearing) and will conclude that it was shameful but also that the national average for a gallon of gas is between $4.99 for a gallon of regular and $5.75 for a gallon of diesel.
They will note prices at the grocery store have skyrocketed. They will note all these quality of life issues - from the homeless and crime problems to inflation - have all happened since the Democrats took over. The riot was 17 months ago. The price hikes are right now. Who is in charge while all this is happening?
I’m sorry to those disappointed by that, but we’re a country that just doesn’t have that long of an attention span. Perhaps last night would have been more impactful if Democrats, eager for anti-Republican headlines, hadn’t leaked everything they thought was the juiciest bit to the press, who in turn eagerly ran those stories and took all the punch out of last night’s hearing. They’ll stretch this out as long as they can, but I don’t think they can maintain the public’s interest for much longer. They have squandered their chance.
On a final note, I’m also glad to see that one of the people who comes out looking good in all this is Mike Pence. There are a great many anti-Trump Republicans who won’t trust anyone affiliated with the Trump administration, but Pence really did try his best to keep things sane, and in the total abdication of responsibility of office we saw from Trump, he stepped up and took control of the matter. It was a slow response, but it’s clear the person in charge, who wanted to keep being in charge, didn’t actually want to be in charge at that moment when it mattered most. Kudos to Pence for doing it, though we should all weep that it happened. Especially in the face of this.
What a damn shame.
That Should Have Been the Second Impeachment Trial
I agree that this specific incident had little chance of changing anything, but I think it’s wrong to just dismiss it as a bunch of nerds playing make believe. Just by doing what they did they’ve sent the message that peaceful transfer of power isn’t the only option, but you need more than just a disorganized mob.