I feel confident that the presentation of the 1/6 Committee will be an outstanding piece of work. Some of the members of that Committee are brilliant people, well trained in the presentation of cases of criminal misconduct, and inflamed with a moral passion to protect American democracy at a moment they recognize is profoundly dangerous.
Where I’m not confident is that at the end of this long-awaited public presentation of the criminal and essentially treasonous behavior of Trump and the Trump Party, I won’t be left with the feeling:
“Why didn’t the Committee speak in the tones of outrage that such outrageous behavior — and such an imminent threat to the constitutional order that has always been considered the heart of the nation — clearly called for?”
I hope I don’t feel, when the Committee’s presentations conclude:
“They didn’t strike the note — in terms of moral passion, and patriotic values — that would have done the most to have the best possible impact on the American electorate.”
I don’t claim to know just what the right note to strike would be— taking into account all the political factors involved regarding the state of the partisan battle, the condition of the American electorate, and the unprecedented nature both of the crimes of the former President and his allies and of the task of holding them accountable.
But what I do know is that the Democrats have been forever fallen short in terms of expressing the appropriate level of outrage, called for by the Republicans’ outrageous political behavior.
For a generation, as the once-respectable Republican Party has moved ever deeper into darkness and destructiveness, the Democrats have failed to make the Republicans pay the appropriate political price their disgraceful conduct should incur. For years, the Democrats have failed to match the intensity and determination to win that the Republicans continually bring to the battle.
I can think of no time that the Democrats have been too combative with the Republicans, as the Republicans have gone over to darkness over the past thirty years. Every time, the problem has been in the other direction: insufficient willingness to “Press the Battle,” even though the Republicans’ position in the battle — pretty much across the board — is fundamentally indefensible.
Pulling punches when hard-hitting is what the nation needs.
I hope this will not be another instance where the Democrats are too polite, too unwilling to get into a fight with “their friends across the aisle,” too afraid to go toe-to-toe with Republicans whose position is indefensible.
I hope after the presentation I will sit back with satisfaction, and say,
“If that presentation doesn’t rouse the majority of the American electorate to reject this fundamentally destructive and increasingly fascistic political Party, then nothing would have!
Hats off to that Insurrection Committee for rising to the occasion and striking the strongest possible blow in the fight to save American democracy from the forces of fascism!”
The Republicans are attacking our democracy. Outrage is called for.
The job of the Committee — the most important job of this moment in America’s political history — is Calling out what needs calling out, in whatever way will have the greatest positive impact.