Why the Jan 6 Hearings Are Doing the Country a Favor

Many readers will find the title of this post annoying. They will believe, as I do, that the Jan 6 hearings are a partisan hack job, orchestrated by Nancy Pelosi as a taxpayer-financed campaign ad. Contrary to long-established tradition, she did not permit the Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, to appoint the Committee’s minority members. Instead, she simply banned two of them who held openly pro-Trump stances, leading McCarthy to pull his other appointees as well. So the Committee consists only of dead-end partisan Democrats who prejudged Trump long ago, plus two Republicans who have made a point of condemning him. There’s not a single member even mildly favorable to Trump, or even one with an open mind.

So it’s not really an inquiry. I doubt it rises even to the level of a show trial. Show trials typically like to dress themselves up in something that might, on a bad day, be mistaken for due process. Not so with this bunch.

So why is this a good thing for America?

First, precisely because of the transparency of its sham character. People of good faith can surely believe that we are due a searching and fair-minded look at the events of January 6 and what lay behind them, including Trump’s dubious or worse role. But it’s perfectly obvious that a fair-minded look is not what we’re getting. What we see here is enough to give partisan huckstering a bad name. And the Democrats own it. On the assumption that there is still a segment of the electorate that, in examining January 6, would like to see sobriety rather than a one-side-only carnival, the Democrats are doing themselves no good.

We all understand that Congressional committees are not going to be trial courts, and the kind of fair play and balance that we expect in court cannot realistically be expected in that setting. But Pelosi’s show is carrying a bad joke too far.

Second and relatedly, the hearing and its myopic, obsessive coverage by the sycophant press has another, only slightly more subtle message for the electorate: This is all the Democrats have. Are we beset with ruinous inflation? Is there a war in Europe our “diplomacy” failed to avert? Do you need to get to the gas station in the morning so you won’t have to pay the higher prices posted that afternoon? Is violent crime spiking? Illegal immigration surging? Is your kid’s school teaching that white people are villains and black people nothing but victims? Or that your third grader needs to ponder if his gender is fluid (assuming he knows either what “gender” or “fluid” means)?

The MSM is doing all it can (which fortunately is less and less, but still substantial) to put all those items over there in the corner while we focus woodenly on events from 18 months ago. One can believe, as I do, that those events merit sober attention, and that we are well advised to think about what they and Trump’s role in them mean, while understanding that the blinkered picture the media is pushing on us is a stunt — and to think about the malign purpose that stunt is designed to achieve, namely, to divert attention from the breathtaking dumpster fire the present administration oversees.

The third and most important reason the January 6 hearings are good for the country may sound at odds with what I’ve said so far, but hear me out. For all their blatant bias, the hearings have pulled back the curtain on the extent of what Trump did, what he knew, and what he ignored, including the urgent advice of his Vice President and his own children. And that is important in considering the two most central political questions the Republican Party, and then (possibly) the country, will face over the next thirty months: Should Donald Trump be returned to the Presidency?

I voted for Trump twice, pretty much without hesitation given the alternatives. I also had the honor of being a Trump nominee for a position in the judicial branch (the US Sentencing Commission). His re-shaping of the judiciary was vital, and has made that branch of the government probably the only important institution in the country not wholly owned by the Left (as opposed, for example, to the media, academia and Hollywood, to name three).

The January 6 hearings, for all their slantedness and all their gross partisan rigging, have showcased a good deal of evidence, much of it already known but some new, that Trump does not have the character, temperament, judgment, modesty, maturity, discipline or — most important — the rigid devotion to the rule of law, and its faithful execution, needed to be President. That may be an unfortunate conclusion, but in honesty I see none other to be drawn.

Question: So why is this a good thing for the country? Answer: Because now the Republican Party knows it needs to nominate someone else. And why is that a good thing? Because the Party has a range of excellent candidates from Ron DeSantis, Tom Cotton, Mike Pompeo, possibly Mike Pence, and others to put forward.

Most elections with an incumbent running become a referendum on that incumbent. As things stand now, I’ll bet good money that any of the candidates just mentioned would win a referendum election with incumbent Joe Biden (or the even less popular Kamala Harris) in a landslide. The RCP averages are not ambiguous. Americans say the country is on the wrong track by 69% to 23% — a margin of three-to-one. Biden’s approval is at 40% and his disapproval is at 56%.

The only way the Republicans can lose the next election is to make it something other than a referendum on Biden and his administration. And almost certainly the only way to do that is to nominate Trump — a nomination the Left will joyfully greet as the chance to make the election a referendum on him instead.

The January 6 hearings have helped clarify what the Republican Party needs to do. And that is the Democrats’ unintended favor, not only to their rivals, but to the country.