This evening, Thursday, June 9, more than a year after they began their investigation, the January 6 Committee will hold its first public hearing on what happened on January 6, 2020, when Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol and attempted to stop the counting of the presidential election electoral votes. At last, we will begin to get the answers as to who planned it, who directed it (we know who incited it) who conspired to undo democracy, how did the false Trump electors figure into this, who was coordinating and directing the right-wing militant groups involved in this, and what other elements were there to this attempted coup,
One could be tempted to ask of Trump and those advisors surrounding him during the weeks after the election culminating in Jan. 6; as one Republican legislator asked in 1973 of the Nixon -Watergate debacle, “What did he know, and when did he know it?”
Violent protesters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. It’s been a stunning day as a number of lawmakers and then the mob of protesters tried to overturn America’s presidential election, undercut the nation’s democracy and keep Democrat Joe Biden from replacing Trump in the White House.
AP Photo/John Minchillo
It is likely that a significant percentage of the U.S. population will not see this prime time report because Fox cable channel is choosing not to cover it; apparently, because it disagrees with their marketing premise that the election was stolen. The other major networks and the major cable news channels will cover it, most starting at 7:00 p.m. MST.
Fact: the election wasn’t stolen. President Joe Biden got a respectable majority of the popular vote and the electoral college, Trump’s own election security administrator Christopher Krebs called it “the safety election in U.S. history,” and even Attorney General William Barr said there was no voter fraud.
The mob was directed to the Capitol by then-president Donald Trump, who major sources tell us was determined to cling to power; democracy be dammed.
Here are the questions Americans must ask themselves: Do you believe in violence as a tool of political force? Are there circumstances in which you believe it is justified? If so, then you will need to look deeper and realize that you may not be as firmly behind democracy as you say. Because if you did, you would understand that violence is the opposite of the democratic ideal.
It has been said that “a big part of the right doesn’t like freedom when their opponents exercise it.” The far-right does not appear to like democracy when the rest of us exercise it either. At this point, that sentiment could leave many of us wondering if democracy can hold against such a headwind. Those who track extremist movements say that Jan. 6 was not a singular incident. It was part of an anti-democratic, authoritarian, white-supremacist movement.
As of yesterday, Colorado Republican powerbroker Joe Oltmann, who called for the mass hangings of political opponents, has issued a new call to seize control of the U.S. government. He is referencing something called the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate, an idea promoted by religious extremists. #copolitics.
In a chilling social media post, Oltmann says “…Now we have the ability to bypass the 7,400 elected ‘leaders’ and the compromised and corrupt judiciary …. think they have no rules, so neither should we. Restoration requires you to tear it down, without permission. we are the lesser magistrate.” He is encouraging his followers to “stand ready, we will be coming to you with a plan.”
Ark Valley Voice encourages everyone, regardless of political party, to watch this first public hearing because the information is more important to our future quality of life, and the existence of this republic than most of us realize.
I still think it is a real shame that the police didn’t have flamethrowers for those trash “patriots” on January 6th.
I bumped into the people Trump was infatuated with on social media while testing something back in 2016 and desperately tried to report them to social media as well as the obviously Russian trolls trying to divide and incite people via their platforms and with lies in advertisements on their platforms. Their users were then bombarded with only the ads and people they agreed with, giving them a false impression of the truth. The hate groups were using social media to spread their intent to violence before the Charlottesville incident where they planned to bash heads. Social media companies would do nothing when warned and they don’t like it when you use their platform for such warnings. They did nothing to prevent absolutely false ads inciting violence for their profit. I believe we are where we are because of social media and phones and constant validation of every false belief. It is a shame that our news media all still use social media to compete because it has destroyed our ability to get real news out to the people who prefer lies and bombastic idiots and crazy theories and who now will not likely watch because they are just as full of propaganda as the Russians supporting Putin. I hope I am wrong and they will all be convinced, but I doubt it. I think that our country is too dumbed down or in love with violence to change and the younger ones simply do not care at all.
Well, Beth, you are on a digital news media site that also puts its fact-based news stories on social media — but our main medium is http://www.arkvalleyvoice.com. We are glad you are a reader and assure you that you can count on AVV to provide you with factual news. That said, we agree that the major social media companies in the U.S. need to tighten up their rules and policies; which Europe has already done. The violence question though — that is a real social phenomena, but it doesn’t include entire generations; we hold hole for your young people to help this world change.