The Final, Terrifying Hearing

     Did anyone watch the final January 6 Committee hearing this past Thursday? I did. It was terrifying.
     There were new video images of the attack on the U.S. Capitol,

...including this footage of the mob screaming for Nancy Pelosi to be brought to them, threatening to drag her out themselves.

       There was new information revealing that Secret Service agents had been monitoring online activity and knew a good ten days in advance that a group was assembling to march into the Capitol to commit violence,

...and that not only did the Secret Service take no action to prevent these people, but members of the Secret Service destroyed documents pertaining to their knowledge of January 6 events and lied to the Congressional Committee about what they knew in advance. 
     ​But even more terrifying than those revelations was a video of top leaders of our country, who had been secreted away to safety at a military post, scrambling to pull together police and military reinforcements,  ​

​...and communicating with Vice President Mike Pence, who took command of quelling the insurrection from where he was hiding out in the basement of the Capitol, 

...while Donald Trump, according to testimony of White House staff, sat at his dining room table watching the Capitol attack on television, relishing what he was seeing, refusing for hours to take any action to stop it.
        That image of members of the United States Congress in hiding is so terrifying because among them was Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. 

​     These two men were there that day. They knew that our democracy was in danger, that their very lives were in danger, and that Donald Trump was responsible for inciting the violence. On that day both men spoke out against Trump and accused him.
      But neither Representative McCarthy nor Senator McConnell voted to impeach or convict Donald Trump for his role in causing the Capitol insurrection, and since then both men have caved in to their lust for power and have rejoined the ranks of Donald Trump's leading supporters, helping to pave the way for him to run again for President of the United States. And that's terrifying.
       And it's terrifying to know that, even though the January 6 Committee voted to subpoena Donald Trump to testify on the events of that day, to give an account of himself to the American people,

...he will likely ignore the Congressional subpoena without legal consequence or punishment, his power over his supporters and the Republican Party not in the least diminished, or maybe even augmented.

    And it's terrifying that if the Republicans win back the House at midterms, as they are predicted to do, then they have promised not only to shut down the January 6 investigation on the attack against the Capitol, but to take revenge against the members of the January 6 Committee by conducting their own investigation against the Committee members.

      But most terrifying of all is that not only does the Republican leadership not care about the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to overthrow our democracy, but enough Americans don't care and will vote into office those leaders who don't care.
​       What fools these mortals be. It's terrifying.