Is it over now? I mean, actually over?
Because if it is, that might be the best holiday present any sane, non-radicalized American citizen could ask for.
Two days before Christmas, we were treated once again to all the fanfare, pomp, and grandeur of another milestone moment of the select January 6th committee. NBC News went so far as to create a movie trailer that led into their coverage of the committee's "final report." Forgive me for being one of the multitude of Americans who were under the impression that these intrepid investigators had already released their official findings about 13 times by now.
That impression was only reinforced when their culminating recommendations became public, specifically the one to bar Donald Trump from ever holding office again. There isn't a politically conscious American anywhere who couldn't have guessed that a panel of Democrats, plus Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, would recommend political banishment for their great orange boogeyman. In other words, the report was about as anticlimactic as the setting of the sun in the west.
And why? Because everyone with a brain also knows that none of the committee recommendations carry the weight of law, nor will they ever actually be enforced. It's saber rattling, political posturing, and symbolic showmanship. Which is why the Republicans formed their own powerless "shadow committee" that released its findings just a couple days earlier. Equally anticlimactic, the Republicans found that Nancy Pelosi was derelict in her duties to adequately protect the Capitol when warned repeatedly about potential trouble.
None of their findings will result in any meaningful action, legal or political. It's all about raising money. That's why I'm so very hopeful that it can now be over.
We all know the Democrats want Trump to stay in the news. This committee wasn't about protecting our republic, it wasn't about truth or democracy; it was all about keeping their cash cow front and center as progressives' public enemy #1.
To be clear, I'm not downplaying how distasteful and illegal the whole January 6th riot was. But that's what it was – a riot. Everyone knows it was a riot. It was a bunch of angry Americans, convinced their hero was being wronged, getting whipped into a frenzy, bizarrely meeting inexcusably little resistance as they stormed their way into the U.S. Capitol.
It wasn't an "insurrection," nor was it a "coup," and no serious person suggests as much. No rational person who isn't radicalized by a passionate political tribalism believes that the moose-horned shaman was part of some intricately planned attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. There was no plan. There was no thought. There was anger, opportunity, and a likeminded reinforcement coming from the masses. A textbook riot.
That's exactly why so many of us have been completely supportive of the effort to identify participants and hold them legally accountable, but who also find this hyperbole insulting:
No, it wasn't. And no, it doesn't.
I fully anticipate the Trump hysteria to roll into 2023, but can someone please assure me that the January 6th committee won't?
