Douglas Murray Douglas Murray

The January 6 hearings are partisan political theatre

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Is it possible to hold two ideas in our heads at once? If so, I should like to put forward a case study. That Donald J. Trump did something that makes him ill-suited for public office, and that the current January 6 hearings in Washington are partisan political theatre.

For anybody who was in outer space at the time, it is worth recalling that 6 January 2021 was the day Trump urged his supporters to join him in Washington to ‘Stop the steal’. The outgoing president could not accept that he was outgoing. He did not agree that he had lost the election two months earlier, and though it is now clear that some of his advisers told him that he had lost, he chose not to believe them. Instead he went down the path of believing that he had won and, with a dwindling number of his advisers, tried to prove that claim. He never managed it.

What did he expect to happen on 6 January? He wanted his loyal vice president, Mike Pence, to do something unconstitutional in voiding the election results. Pence could not and would not do it. Meanwhile, thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol. Trump urged them to be peaceful, but he also told them: ‘You have to show strength.’ He probably didn’t expect them to breach the Capitol, because he was clearly shocked by the resulting scenes. We know that because it was only after they unfolded that he finally did what he should have done two months earlier and conceded the election.

‘Dammit! Have they no consideration for other people?’

America survived this huge stress-test of its democracy, but no thanks to Trump. He still maintains that the election was rigged and appears incapable of stepping down from that claim. It will be interesting to see what appetite remains for his view after the November midterms, when the Republicans are expected to do well.

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