On June 21, I published some notes about January 6 and the relevant hearings. Here comes another set, for those interested. And those who are not — can click on a thousand other things. (Vive la liberté!)
In a column last December, I wrote, “Two women, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, mother and daughter, have filed a defamation suit against The Gateway Pundit, a website.” My column continued,
The women were election workers in Fulton County, Ga. In dozens of articles, the website claimed that the women had committed fraud in the 2020 presidential election — stealing the election from President Trump.
In his infamous phone call of January 3 to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, Trump brought up Ruby Freeman’s name 18 times.
That’s a lot of times, in one phone call.
More:
Followers of The Gateway Pundit made the lives of Freeman and Moss a hell. The women received endless death threats. On the advice of the FBI, Freeman fled from her home. She also had to close down her online business (which sold fashion accessories).
A conclusion:
Lies are not mere fun and games. Not everyone knows we’re “jes’ playin’,” just performing. Gettin’ the clicks or whatever. These lies can have devastating consequences to actual people. Said Ruby Freeman in a statement, “I want the defendants to know that my daughter and I are real people who deserve justice, and I never want them to do this to anyone else.”
Can’t everyone relate to that, R and D alike, red and blue alike?
Yes, can’t they?
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss have now testified before the January 6 committee. To read an account in the Washington Post, go here. That account is headed “Election workers describe ‘hateful’ threats after Trump’s false claims.” It makes for very difficult reading. All except the most tribal, the most partisan, will feel sympathy for these women, and be repulsed by those who lied about them and hounded them.
“Mean tweets, just mean tweets!” say many Republicans. No. Words have consequences. They can often lead to violence. We have seen this before our very eyes, as on January 6, 2021. And presidential words are of particular importance. They can move the world, for good or ill. Conservatives made this point constantly during the Reagan period. I believed them, and I still do.
“Jes’ playin’,” or “Jes’ blowin’ off steam,” doesn’t cut it.
• Liz Cheney asked General Flynn whether he believes the violence on January 6 was justified, legally or morally. He took the Fifth. She then asked, “General Flynn, do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America?” He took the Fifth. To me, one of the worst things was that he did so while wearing an American-flag pin on his lapel. All these guys do this: go around with their American-flag pins and crosses. It adds insult to injury, in the eyes of some of us.
If you can’t say you believe in the peaceful transfer of power, at least rip that pin off your lapel.
• “Poorly served” is a phrase of our time. People say that Trump was “poorly served” by those around him. Is this so? If it is, it’s because Trump wanted to be “poorly served.” And if staff were not serving him poorly enough, he brought in others, who would. Trump ought to be accorded his volition.
• In June 2016, I wrote the following: “In my view, Trump is grossly unfit to be president, in both mind and character — especially the latter. Even if I agreed with him on the issues — even if I thought his worldview sound — I would balk at supporting him, owing to the issue of character.”
The other day, I was thinking about lies, the avalanche of lies (or more like the steady stream of them). Even if you shared all of Trump’s political beliefs — and he does have them, contrary to rumor (on trade, immigration, foreign policy, and other things) — how could you stomach the lies? If a politician shared all of my old-fashioned Reaganite beliefs, but lied his behind off, how could I stomach the lies?
Some conservatives turned away from McCarthy for that reason: They were anti-Communist, all right, and concerned about Communist influence in government, but they were repulsed by the lies.
• As we have seen in the January 6 hearings, there were Republicans at the state level — in Georgia, for example, and Arizona — who stopped the steal. They acted well-nigh heroically, and they received plenty of threats for their trouble. Raffensperger received death threats, his wife received rape threats. Par for the course.
Those resilient and patriotic officials: Will they be there next time, if there is a next time, like 2020?
• On Thanksgiving Day 2020, Trump said of Raffensperger, “He’s an enemy of the people.” Can Republicans please retire the ancient, smelly phrase “enemy of the people,” especially as it relates to, say, honest GOP officials?
• Listening to the hearings, you can see why Republicans, both in politics and in the media, worked so very hard to keep them from ever taking place. Ask yourself: Are they worried the hearings will convey false things? Or true things?
• “She’s a liar!” say many Republicans about Cassidy Hutchinson. Ask yourself: If everything Hutchinson has described were confirmed by video, would these same people defend Trump nonetheless, spinning their heinies off? They would, right?
• “Show trial!” people say. It’s a show trial, yes, in that the hearings are showing things that some people would have preferred to suppress. One writer compared Liz Cheney to Vishinsky. I am grateful — extra grateful — for this Jonah Goldberg column: “Quit Your Stalin: It’s morally repugnant to compare the January 6 hearings to show trials.”
• “Henry Hyde used to chair the Judiciary Committee,” I keep thinking. “He was the leading Republican on it.” Now that Republican is Jim Jordan, whom President Trump gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom, just before Trump left office. (He conferred the same on Devin Nunes at the same time.) The Republicans of the House Judiciary Committee have a Twitter account, which performs a running commentary during the hearings. Sample: “lol no one is watching this.”
Hyde was representative of the GOP of his time; Jordan is representative of the GOP of his — in thought, tone, everything.
• Liz Cheney gave a speech at the Reagan Library. According to an account in the Los Angeles Times, Cheney “was greeted warmly by the audience, which gave an extended standing ovation upon her entrance.” Welcome news, to some of us.
• “We have to choose,” said Cheney, “because Republicans cannot be loyal to Donald Trump and to the Constitution.” I’m not sure that’s good news for the Constitution.
• I don’t care whether Liz receives two votes in Wyoming — her parents’. (Or three, with Alan Simpson’s.) She has been noble in a critical period. Stand-up. The aforementioned Hyde used to give a speech to incoming GOP freshmen. In November 1990, he told them, “If you don’t know the principle, or the policy, for which you are willing to lose your office, then you are going to do damage here.”
• Character in office matters a lot. Conservatives stressed this, when I was coming of age, and learning about the world. Figuring out what I believed. They were so right, these guys (and gals). The thing about the old verities is . . . they are indeed verities. They’re true.
• I have read excellent articles about Trump’s potential legal culpability. Speaking personally, I don’t want him behind bars. I don’t need him to “face justice.” Though it is also true that, in this country, no one is above the law. We are a nation of laws, not men. The only justice I really want, however, is that the truth be widely known and acknowledged. And that lies be dispelled.