Jan. 6 hearings attest that the threat isn't over
By Jonathan Bernstein / Bloomberg Opinion
The most important comments from the third public hearing this month of the House Jan. 6 committee came right at the end. After the panel heard testimony detailing the efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to illegally try to overturn the election, former Judge J. Michael Luttig pointed out that even now, “Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.”
T hat’s “because to this very day, the former president and his allies and supporters pledge” — if they lost next time — “they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election … but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.” Luttig, who advised Pence prior to Jan. 6, continued: “I don’t speak those words lightly. I would have never spoken those words ever in my life, except that that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us.”
The committee’s hearings have done an excellent job for the most part in reminding us that, for all the details, what this is really about is an effort by a president of the United States to unlawfully overturn an election; and, therefore, to overthrow the government and the constitutional order. And as Luttig emphasized, the threat continues.
The trick for the committee is to keep this main point in the forefront, while also telling the full story that goes with it and including enough fascinating details to keep the attention of key audiences. As political scientist Shana Kushner Gadarian says, “the tactic of focusing on one person at a time in these committee hearings — Trump, Pence, [John] Eastman — to build the narrative is very smart.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-jan-6-hearings-attest-that-the-threat-isnt-over/
= new reply since forum marked as read
