I just finished watching the first televised meeting of the January 6th panel, including the testimony of the embedded documentarian, Nick Quested, as well as injured police officer Edwards. I suppose I should have live blogged it, but I wasn’t up for it.
And, for the most part, there was nothing new, with the exception of the video footage of the witnesses who testified to the committee, the video footage of some of the rioters, standing trial or prepping for trial, remarking on their motivations, and some of the footage of the riot.
And the latter is quite violent. Three points came to mind while I watched all this firsthand footage:
- There were only a couple of thousand rioters present, it seems to me. This wasn’t a mob of even tens of thousands, much less what the former President would have us believe. Just a couple of thousand, give or take. That’s enough to overwhelm an ill-prepared police force denied backup, yes, but even with sympathizers scattered throughout the nation, this is no Moral Majority-equivalent. Malcontents is closer to it.
- Building on that, these folks are sadly lacking in critical-thinking faculties. They were disappointed in the results, the loser shrieks it was rigged, and rather than calmly exploring that possibility, or accepting that the courts, who are charged, in effect, to be our proxies in matters such as these, and the courts universally ruled against the loser on all substantive matters, they took the loser at his word and tried to force the result they wanted. They should have realized that Trump claiming it was statistically impossible for him to lose doesn’t make it so.
- I forget. If I remember, I’ll publish an addendum.
I must say that splitting time between the Democrats and the Republicans, in the persons of Chairman Thompson (D-MS) and Rep Cheney (R-WY) was very effective.
The question, though, is what will independents who’ve been trying to ignore the matter going to make of this? I know the Republican pundits will all try very hard to discredit it, which is why I’ll just ignore them.
But independents are the key to power these days.
Addendum: #3: For the good of the nation, as well as his conscience, Rep Andrew “they were just tourists!” Cyde (R-GA) should resign immediately. And go into seclusion. His remarks on the matter at the time are incredibly shameful.
