I've been watching the January 6th hearings.
On Thursday we took a break from our Denzel Washington film festival to watch the prime time show, The January 6th Congressional Committee Hearings.
In my opinion, Denzel Washington is one of the great actors of our time.
When Denzel and Spike Lee came together to create the Malcom X movie they created something special. Denzel was so right acting Malcom X that he was Malcom X.
Our idea was that when we sat down for the evening’s entertainment - which is pretty short during the summer months - we would watch a Denzel flick. Some nights we split the movie up and watched it over two nights.
So far: The Mighty Quinn. Devil in a Blue Dress, Inside Man and Out of Time.
Every one of them was good.
But Thursday night we took a break to watch the tv summer series, the January 6th hearings. It may or may not be the final tv episode. We figured that if it were as engaging as the first five episodes, episode 6 would be worth taking a break from Denzel.
Frankly, I was mixed.
There were highlights.
Josh Hawley doing a fist pump to the insurrectionist mob one minute and then the video of him hawling ass running from them the next.
The video of Trump pounding his fist while making a video, complaining that “yesterday is a hard word for me.”
The American people are paying attention to these hearings. Six out of ten say they have been following them. Most Republicans still have a favorable view of Trump. Most Americans, we must be reminded, are not Republicans.
A majority of Americans are paying attention and blame former President Donald Trump for what happened that day in 2021, but don't think he will be prosecuted, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
Watching, I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was a show put on by Democrats for Republicans. It seemed like an attempt to peel away even a tiny number of Republican voters from Trump, enough for the Democrats to hold on to power in November and 2024.
Democratic leaders had anti-Trump Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger do most of the heavy lifting on Thursday night.
Giving testimony was Trumper and former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger. He was a loyal Trumper for all of Trump’s four years. He stayed with Trump until all but two weeks were left.
Pottinger resigned January 6th.
As Michelle Goldberg wrote in the NY Times column titled “The Myth of the Good Trump Official:
“It was a privilege to serve in the White House,” Pottinger said during his testimony on Thursday. “I’m also very proud of President Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments.”
Pottinger worked for the Trump administration from its beginning until Jan. 7, 2021. He was one of many who didn’t resign over Trump’s defense of the rioters in Charlottesville, Va., his attempted extortion of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his claims to have won an election he clearly lost, to cite just a few milestones. During Pottinger’s testimony, he said that Jan. 6 “emboldened our enemies by helping give them ammunition to feed a narrative that our system of government doesn’t work, that the United States is in decline.” But there’s no way to separate that from the rest of Trump’s legacy, or from Pottinger’s own. He shouldn’t be proud.
So typical.
Democrats creating these hearings as a way to peel off some Republican voters has been typical of the Democratic strategy in confronting Trump and Trumpism all along.
They have spent too much time catering to and trying to win Republicans rather than mobilizing and representing the interests and needs of the rest of us.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is a winning strategy.
I don’t think so. But what do you think?
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