Comment: Jan. 6 hearings are for the benefit of democracy
By Jonathan Bernstein / Bloomberg Opinion
The first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6 is coming up this week. Congress is going to make a big deal about it. So, too, are the news media. They are both correct to do so.
The New York Times editorial board explains why last year’s riot represents a continuing threat:
“It is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, ‘When can we use the guns?’ and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. It is Donald Trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation’s two major political parties.”
Marking the day with appropriate ceremonies should be just the beginning. The main public attempt to explain just what happened — the attempt by a president who lost an election to nevertheless remain in office — will be in what is promised to be “weeks” of hearings by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Americans need a full accounting, but even more than that we need a compelling story, threading in the organized attempts of the Trump White House and its allies, the thuggish organized groups that participated, and the ordinary citizens who wound up caught up in the president’s lies.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-jan-6-hearings-are-for-the-benefit-of-democracy/