Author’s Note: Apologies in advance that there won’t be an essay in your boxes next Monday, as I’m doing a bit of traveling. Should return later in that week.
I sat down in the United Lounge in San Diego last week with a bit of time to kill before the monthly red-eye home. Usually this interlude is for reading, or bingeing, but on this particular Thursday, I was glued to my tablet to watch the beginning of the end of the January 6th Commission. I am reliably informed there will be a number of open hearings in the next month in which the events of that day and the months preceding it will be gone over with a fine tooth comb.
It is right and proper that this be done, as what transpired that day was a great, treasonous crime aided and abetted by the then occupant of the Oval Office. His actions (and inactions), and those supporting him must be accounted for and made public. The rushed nature of the impeachment proceeding in January of 2021 mitigated against a deep and thorough investigation, but this committee and its counsel had the luxury of time to thoroughly probe this great stain on our nation. I look forward to continuing deliberations and testimony.
But I expect little of consequence from the process. This does not mean I do not think it important; quite the opposite. The process is essential. It is essential in order to get the facts and the history down, so that generations to come can know what happened and can potentially use it to identify road signs on the way to their own great crimes. As for near-term consequences though, Americans must not be naïve. Donald Trump is unlikely to be charged with any crimes as a result of this investigation, not because he does not deserve to be, but because in so doing, a terrible and destabilizing precedent would be set, as the seated President would be viewed (by some) as pursuing a vendetta against his most important rival. Put another way, in the terrible choice between Trump not being held accountable and yet another great blow to the fabric of the Constitutional order, I choose the former. It is the least bad choice.
Given that I see any hope of charges being brought as in vain, I do think there is a great patriotic duty the committee can do with its remaining time. It must ignore the shrill cries of Democrats and Never-Trumpers (like me) for a scalp. It must ignore—and by IT, I mean the Democrats on the committee—ANY hope that what they do will have ANY impact on the 2022 Congressional Elections, the economy having already pre-destined them to a crushing defeat. No—there really is only one strategic goal available to the committee, and that is to do as much damage to Donald Trump’s reputation as possible in order to provide REPUBLICAN primary voters with good reasons to choose someone else.
The plain truth is that if Donald Trump is nominated, he will win in 2024, especially if his opponent is Joe Biden. There are simply too many voters who will answer the question “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” by saying “No—I am certainly not”, and then voting for Trump. Let’s remember, he really only needed an additional 40k to 60k votes across a number of key states—to win.
The task of this committee is to churn up so much evidence of Trump’s complicity and duplicity that Republican voters are unable to swallow hard for a third time and support him. They must provide his primary opponents with the means to take him down, because if they do not, he will be President again. The consequences of hoping that Biden or Democrat X will be able to defeat him are potentially disastrous, and the way to rid the country of Trump forever, is to be part of helping the GOP to get out of its own, incompetent way.
This sort of advice runs against the tide, in that no party REALLY wants to admit defeat. But that’s exactly what the Democrats must do. They must act strategically and patriotically and concentrate on the 2026 mid-term elections—because they are utterly powerless to stop the GOP wave coming their way over the next 2.5 years.
There will be few if any smoking guns. What the committee must do is relentlessly pound Donald Trump and his enablers. They must resist the urge to grandstand for their OWN base—if anything, they need to grandstand for Republican voters. If they do what comes naturally to them, the committee will fail in having served anything but a useful historical record.