Will the Jan 6th hearings be a crass ploy for Democrats to win the midterms or a genuine attempt to learn from the riot?
This week televised hearings from the January 6th Committee begin; it’ll be very interesting to see what the committee has to say, and to learn of their strategy. The committee is a bipartisan effort in the American parliament to investigate what really happened on January 6th 2021 when a mob stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC. Given how wide-spread the idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump on the Republican side is, it's no surprise that most Republicans in Congress chose not to participate, and that background lends the whole affair a very partisan atmosphere. The narratives surrounding the January 6th riot are roughly that Republicans say that nothing really happened, it was a boisterous demonstration that got a bit out of hand, whereas many Democrats say it was an attempted coup. As an outsider, it seems to me that it was a riot but not an attempted coup. The very partisan politics of the US makes neither side take the other seriously so the left calling January 6th an attempted coup sounds like a bad faith interpretation of events from the right’s point of view, even when the left might have a point.
Given this background of extreme partisanship it’ll be very interesting to see what the committee’s framing around the events of January 6th will be, and what its strategy for broadcasting its findings will be. Televising the hearings shows that the committee wants to get as much attention as possible, but it remains to be seen why it wants that attention. It could be an appeal to the public to remember that Republican politicians were responsible for the events of January 6th in order to give the Democrats a better chance in the upcoming midterms, an investigation to get a factual basis for constructing policy to prevent something similar from happening in the future and a historical record, or a way to name and shame Trump and members from his administrations for their involvement or possible culpability in the riot. It could be a combination of two or more of those options, but my gut feeling is that it will primarily be used to shame Trump and to serve as a historical record. The consistent and recurring problem in American politics is that neither side sees the other as good faith actors who wish to make the country better, and it would be a shame to see that dynamic play out in the hearings instead of using the hearings as an opportunity to understand what drove the rioters to drastic and sometimes violent acts so that such episodes can be prevented in the future.
Televising the hearings of a parliamentary committee, which are usually not very exciting, sets an expectation for spectacle. Spectacle can be fun, and a good tool to spread the information the committee has found but it’s imperative that it doesn’t devolve into political theater designed to score points against the Republicans. Using a hearing about what some call an attempted coup to boost the Democrats’ chances of winning the midterms would be deeply ironic, as it would erode the confidence in democratic institutions just like the Trump administration and its rioters did.
If you liked this post you can read a previous post about the war in Ukraine here, or the rest of my writings here. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover Photo by Michael Judkins from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
Kommentarer