A lot rides on the presentation the 1/6 Committee will be making to the American people in June. The futures markets are saying that the American electorate is on track to hand control of Congress to a Party that was an accomplice to an attempted coup d’etat, and that is still engaged in a multi-pronged assault on our Constitution.
What does that mean? And what can the 1/6 Committee do to change the American people’s relationship with the dangerous authoritarian cult that the Republican Party has become, which is endangering the survival of American democracy.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
The Committee’s presentation is sure to address one part of the “What does it mean?” question: i.e. that the public does not know the facts of the matter. But it is doubtful that will move the needle much. The basic facts of the matter have been visible since even before the attack on the Capitol, and it is hard to see how the Committee’s fleshing out of the whole sordid, criminal enterprise will be revelatory to a great many Americans who are heading toward voting for Republicans in November.
It may be a bit more promising for the 1/6 Committee to address a second dimension of the “What does it mean?” question: i.e. that too many Americans don’t realize that the facts of the history the Committee will be presenting represent a fundamental assault on the Constitution. But that, too, seems so clear — Trump and the Republicans using the “Big Lie” to overturn a legitimate election has been shown in countless ways for a year and a half, with abundant evidence — that it is hard to envision how many people can be moved to recognize what they haven’t yet recognized, or have been willing to deny even if they recognize it, by the Committee’s presentation.
That leaves one more piece of the answer to “What does that mean?” that I would argue is necessary to drive home in the upcoming public hearings: i.e. that “protecting and defending the Constitution” is vital to the interests of the American people.”
In other words, it seems quite possible that 1) too many Americans don’t really care if the Constitution gets overthrown, and 2) it is possible to teach a significant proportion of those Americans that the Constitution is the foundation of the blessings that they — and two-plus centuries of previous generations of Americans — enjoy. (And therefore that they should strip power away from the political Party that is attempting to demolish it.)
ONE APPROACH: THE CLEAR MESSAGE FROM OUR FOUNDERS
The Committee should convey to the American people, saying something like:
“We know that our nation’s founders believed that the preservation of the Constitution was the most important thing.
“We know because they composed an oath of office that required every single person to swear solemnly — before being invested with any of the powers of the state — that they would do that one essential thing: “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” from “enemies, foreign and domestic.”
”This was the one promise they required, putting that oath right into the Constitution.
“Those brilliant people sent us a message, telling us that all the other good things depend on fulfilling this promise.”
The Committee should help American to envision the kind of world the founders were thinking about when they set up the Constitution to protect the people of this nation.
“Our founders composed this Constitution with an understanding of the terrible darkness to which the absence of such an order condemns a nation’s people.
“They composed it with an eye to some very dark history when they addressed issues of ‘cruel and unusual punishments,’ not having to testify against oneself (they knew about people tortured on the rack), the requirements of warrants to allow ‘search and seizure.’
“(And we have seen that same kind of world in authoritarian nations — like the one ruled over by Putin in Russia, Trump’s friend — where the rulers keep gathering powers unto themselves until they are unchecked. Where it is the ruler who controls the people, rather than the people who control the ruler.)”
The Committee should help Americans understand the darkening of human life that our failing to “protect and defend the Constitution” will bring to us, and our children, and our grandchildren.
Indeed, one might say that the oath of office that the members of the 1/6 Committee have taken, themselves, requires them to do everything in their power to mobilize the American people to repudiate those whose ongoing assault on the Constitution their report will show.
All this must be accomplished, of course, within the confines of their assignment as a Committee. (It would not be appropriate, for example, for the presentation to be made as if geared toward the midterm elections. But it should be entirely possible to convey the necessary points without making the electoral implications the least bit explicit.