Will January 6th be the new norm? More pointedly, will efforts to overturn the results of close elections become an ordinary feature of American politics? In close elections, will state legislatures refuse to certify elections results if a candidate from the other party won? Will the House and Senate refuse to acknowledge the counting of electoral votes if the candidate of the other party won?
Such questions go to the heart of American democracy.
Liz Cheney is right that we should have a January 6th commission to fully understand the events the culminated in the attack on the Capitol. As she writes in the Washington Post, “we must support a parallel bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power to seek and find facts; it will describe for all Americans what happened. This is critical to defeat the misinformation and nonsense circulating in the press and on social media. No currently serving member of Congress — with an eye to the upcoming election cycle — should participate. We should appoint former officials, members of the judiciary and other prominent Americans who can be objective, just as we did after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The commission should be focused on the Jan. 6 attacks.”
It is stunning how quickly Republicans have moved to rewrite history, downplaying a violent attack on the Congress to disrupt a constitutional process that recognized Joe Biden as the duly elected president. Shockingly, Democrats have downplayed January 6th as well. But the country should not move on from January 6th. We need to come to terms with it, and how the Big Lie continues to shape our politics.
A commission one could actually have faith in, that in Representative Cheney’s mind some unspecified “we” would appoint, would be worthwhile, and would likely support some of the charges Senator McConnell made (in his final impeachment speech) about Trump’s behavior that day, although it would embarrass many others as well… …but, since we’ve entered the realm of the fantastical, may we dare to imagine a similar commission, backed by WAPO, Cheney, and the Constitutionalist too, that might investigate the events of another date, November 3rd? Why isn’t Thomas calling also for that? But I blather on about the impossible, when Dr. Seuss is a more apropos response:
I can hold up the January 6th fish!
and a little toy January 6th ship!
and some milk on a January 6th dish!
and look!
I can hop up and down on the “Charlottesville!” ball,
but that is not all!
Oh, no.
That is not all…
Is there any evidence besides Trump’s say-so that there was anything problematic about November 3rd? Since you speak of the “fantastical”, why would there be a commission to investigate it? Perhaps we should also have a commission to investigate aliens? Or unicorns? The fact that Trump and others say that there was malfeasance doesn’t make it so.