Into the Woods

I have written here in the past about Fiona Hill, the Russia expert who worked in the White House and who gave such brilliant testimony during Trump’s second impeachment. Fiona Hill went on to write a beautiful book, There Is Nothing for You Here. Yesterday, during the sixth of the January 6 committee’s televised hearings on the Trump coup attempt, Cassidy Hutchinson gave similarly extraordinary testimony.

Hutchinson is only 25, and as I took note of her perfect poise, her perfect diction, and her unwilting and respectful character when caught in the klieg lights between two hostile centers of political power and between tyranny and justice, I thought about what a privileged background she must have had to find herself as a witness to so much power at such an early age. But I was wrong about the privilege. Rather than a creature of Harvard, as I would have guessed, Hutchinson actually attended a modest public university, Christopher Newport University in Virginia. She is a first-generation college student. Obviously, like Fiona Hill, Cassidy Hutchinson is extremely gifted, and it wasn’t privilege that got her to where she is. We probably will see much more of her in the future, if (a big if) the Republican Party can throw out the Trumpists and choose leaders with integrity. The hearings have shown us that at least a few such Republicans remain.

We still haven’t seen whether the Republican Party has figured out that its only hope is to cut Trump loose and let Trump fall back into hell. Republicans may try to brazen it out until the November election, hoping that they can regain enough power in Congress to throw the country back into Trumpian chaos, and back on the path to theocracy and fascism. And honestly, if the American people choose theocracy and fascism in a fair election, then Americans will have brought on themselves the horror of the years that will surely follow. We must never forget that Trumpist Republicans are a minority, that the party as currently constituted can gain power only by lying and cheating (do we need more proof than what January 6 provided?), and that iron-boot rule by a corrupt minority could never be stable in a country like America. There would be chaos until the majority regained control — Americans who want to live in a democracy under the rule of law, Americans who are better educated, who can distingush truth from lies, who produce most of the country’s wealth, and most important people of character who can see the difference between honorable human beings and lying con men with the maturity of an eight-year-old.

The media coverage of the hearings has been quite good. I haven’t had much to say about it because there’s little I can add. But I do try to connect the dots and look ahead at the probabilities of what might happen next. I’ve been saying for a very long time that Trump will go to prison. I should have said that it will take a while to put him there, but at least now just about everyone can see that Trump is going to prison. Do the leaders of the Republican Party see that now? If they do, how might they change course? And does Trump himself now see that he’s going to prison? Does he have lawyers who are not lunatics like Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman? If he does, then Trump has to know what’s going to happen. He could easily lose his freedom once the first indictments are filed, even before he goes on trial. If I were Trump, I’d gas up the family jet and move to Russia. Since Trump kills everything he touches, Trump’s assistance would be invaluable in helping Putin crash and burn, bringing regime change to Russia.

Yesterday’s hearing added something very important above and beyond the testimony about Trump’s legal liability. That was details that help expose Trump’s infantile character to those who have previously refused to see it — smashed dishes, lunch and ketchup thrown against a White House wall, the enraged attempt to throttle a Secret Service agent, the eagerness for violence in demanding that the rioters be allowed to keep their weapons, the apparent approval of allowing a mob to hang his own vice president. That such a man ever got inside the White House is a stain and a shame that this country will have to bear for as long as there is an America. I take some comfort in knowing that, though we’re still living through the chaos, at least history will have the full story of what happened, thanks to the January 6 committee.