Hubris
Tonight on prime time (Thursday July 21) is the 8th hearing of the Jan. 6 committee. Following are some personal observations.
UPDATE July 22: Heather Cox Richardson, July 21, 2022
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July 13, 2022.
After the last Hearing on July 12, I recalled the old saying: “give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself“. The link gives a history of the term. Yes, this applies to women, too!
I watched the hearing as usual. Here’s Heather Cox Richardson’s summary.
Early on at this space I’ve said that these Hearings are to establish a record for posterity. What happens in court is separate and will come in its own time, if at all.
I have also said that the hearings have been structured, beginning with the small fry – the criminals who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – and ending with the spotlight on the godfather, so to speak. The Guy who orchestrated it all thought he’d accomplish the fraud, but the very long rope he’s relied on his whole life is now in the process of (figuratively) hanging him and his accomplices. The truth is outing, as it is always inclined to do.
Living a lie, large or small or immense, has consequences. It only takes time. (Of course, this applies to all of us as well, including lying to ourselves – manufacturing a false reality. But that’s another topic.)
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Doubtless the audience for the hearings has (and will) include legions of lawyers and students of law; plus the Big Deals of politics, including those who say they won’t watch.
This Congressional hearing is an entity of its own, and doesn’t operate by the same rules and timelines as Court. The hearings are intended to inform we, the people.
Succinctly, the Law, parallel to the Hearing, is not Perry Mason, or 48 Hours.
Anyone ever encountering the law, personally, knows it is not a simple process. Law is a profession with a very long and honorable history, an adversary process, as opposed to mediation or conciliation, and effort towards Justice.
The Department of Justice is criticized for not moving more quickly, or moving at all. The criticism is designed for public consumption. The process is working as it has always worked, and we should be thankful for that.
The Legal and the Legislative process is methodical and involves lots and lots of what I would call committee deliberations in preparation, pro and con.
(The famous Nuremberg Trials after WWII began shortly after the end of WWII and concluded four years later, in 1949. Not all stood trial, of course. Hitler, the big fish, was dead. Etc.)
July 21, 2022
I began this post July 13. Much has happened in the intervening days, up to and including today.
On and on this goes.
Heather Cox Richardson has become, for me, a personal reliable source of honest reporting. Here and here are her posts since July 13. Her nearly daily posts are worth following.
The insurrection aftermath reminds me of another quotation from the past: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive“, a caution about consequences of lying.
It’s one thing when #45’s empire was real estate and he was a one-man show. It is something else again when you are responsible for an immense country of great diversity and it is impossible to keep the lid on information which before you could hide behind things like non-disclosure agreements and such.
Personal Perceptions.
I have no idea at all what the final outcome will be in this, the worst constitutional crisis our country has encountered since the Civil War.
Neither does anyone else know, no matter how high and mighty they might be. There are endless opinions and theories. The process continues
I think the ex-president will be indicted and tried and likely convicted, but the actual court decision, if it goes to trial, could be years off, absent some other resolution between.
The ultimate focus has always been the capo, the head, #45. By all accounts, he has always been accustomed to winning by his own rules, and personal winning by any means necessary has always been his modus operandi. “Me” is his only focus.
Winning the U.S. presidency was a plum he never expected. It’s largest fringe benefit, I feel, was essentially a perception of immunity from accountability, including having the ability to pardon others, potentially including himself. That was the biggest fringe benefit for #45 , the driver to lust to run again in 2024.
He still has lots of support including members of law enforcement military, bureaucrats, lawmakers, on and on.
He has plenty of allies. Should he win, all of them will be like his opponents: the victims, short and long term.
Personally, I doubt we’ll ever actually see another ballot with his name on it, but again, nobody knows.
As they used to say on the farms, “the chickens are coming home to roost”. The gig is up.
POSTNOTE: There is a larger issue here being fought. For our entire history, white men (meaning “men”) ruled, especially those already with privilege. These folks not only made the rules, but controlled their enforcement. This hegemony is being challenged, by women, by persons of color, by persons of less privilege, and so on, and it is a struggle that needs to happen until better balance of some sort is legally and permanently achieved. I’m part of the privileged class. I support the struggle for change.
COMMENTS (more at the end of post):
from Joyce: I so hope you are right about his being indicted and convicted. I’m not so optimistic, and I truly fear for our democracy.
response from Dick: Of course, I have no more or less knowledge of what will happen, but you have to remember that you and I are not the only people in the country that don’t want the American Experiment of over 200 years fail!!!!.
It will take a long while to get to the end of this, so I won’t make a bet. But…mark my words! Your guess and mine will be memorialized in the blog!!!
from Fred: We haven’t missed a word of these hearings. It’s a two buckets of popcorn night this time.
The emperor is losing his clothes and the man-child who would be king is fast becoming the Willy Lohman of presidential politics and that is so good to see realizing all of the harm to America that he has done and that the Trump/Multi Jowl SCOTUS will continue to do for decades to come!