Jan. 6 hearings: A national civics lesson on the dangers of fascism

The House Jan. 6 committee hearings are an act of public teaching: a civics lesson on a grand stage. That was especially true of last Tuesday's hearing, with its truth-telling about race, violence, American history, power, psychology, and the escalating existential threat to the country represented by Donald Trump, the Republican-fascist movement and the larger white right. On Dec. 18, 2020, some of Trump's most dangerous confederates, including former general Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell, gathered at the White House in a now-infamous meeting where they tried to convince him to impose martial law, confiscate voting machines to "prove" nonexistent voter fraud and launch other schemes to steal the 2020 election from the American people. Young men desperate for a place in history — be they white supremacist "crusaders" or Islamic warriors for the Caliphate — are especially attracted to the dark charisma of leaders like Trump. Last Tuesday's committee hearing also showed the American people how power in the wrong hands can be used to break or exploit the tacit bargains and understandings that sustain our democracy, the "norms" and "values" and "institutions" obsessively discussed by the country's political class and news media.