Was "January 6th" the kind of event where "you'll always remember where you were?" Perhaps. I was quite predictably at home and learning about it all on the media. I misread one item. Once I learned that Liz Cheney had turned skeptic toward Donald Trump, I thought the debate would shift and we'd get closer to a consensus that the events of the day were truly bad.
In my own mind of course, I saw the events as defying belief. We might see a scene like this in a less-developed country. I do remember on the evening of the 6th, sending an email to a friend asserting that Liz Cheney's position would be meaningful. A harbinger about the consensus I just cited.
Just think back to the days of the legacy media. The trusted voices of "the networks" would steer us toward a sensible perception. What happened on January 6 was outrageous, surely dangerous. And "conservatives" who have a basic faith in a sense of order should have intoned as much. But instead there was a "wild west" attitude coming from the political right, a sense of true lawlessness, of rebellion and revolt with the potential to endanger our very nation as we've known it.
This was "conservative?"
Maybe the problem is that we have all this "conservative media" that emboldens the kind of people who fancy themselves conservative. It emboldens them to the point where they think they can go beyond reasonable bounds. And it gets more extreme, even as of this early May day, 2023. Because, Fox News is no longer assumed to be the banner-carrier. Has Fox in fact become passe, maybe just a curiosity, maybe a vestigial thing that has given rise to any number of new ventures in our ever more fragmented media?
"And Fox News begat. . ." et al. Look at Newsmax and OAN. But the fragmentation continues apace in a landscape where the most extreme views get the most attention. The most eyeballs.
Yes, Fox News could, if it wanted, put on a totally exemplary news program in Tucker's old time slot. Hey, it's called "Fox News," isn't it? Maybe in its early days it had such a quality: reliable reporting from a right of center perspective, but not necessarily unhinged-right (i.e. Mark Levin-right).
There's an audience out there that wants the extreme stuff. That is why Fox News could not rein in some of its personalities in the aftermath of January 6. The temptation was overwhelming to cater to the wishes of the self-styled extreme conservatives. They are self-styled in the sense that they really just want to air grievance - this supersedes any effort to meticulously research one's positions.
Make noise and sound angry. Which we might observe with mere bemusement if the element did not have sufficient reach to get Donald Trump elected. Which it did in 2016, even though Trump lost the popular vote. So we watched what unfolded on Jan. 6, four years later, and should have joined hands with a sense of revulsion.
Many sensible people did in fact react accordingly. The shocking thing was the number of people who went right along with it. They went along with Trump's "attorneys" who said things ad nauseam on Fox News to get the network sued and to eventually pay an out-of-court settlement. Why pay that amount if Fox was a sensible and conscientious news/commentary operation? Wouldn't that be a pretty low bar to meet?
This was a channel with a national audience. Presumably it could put people on the air with the top credentials. The likes of Chris Wallace, for example. And if Trump's "crazies" got on the air, just let them talk, and then say something like "well if that's true, that's pretty serious." I'm sure they knew all the legal angles all along.
So what did them in? Greed. The competition for eyeballs is so serious in our contemporary media age. People my age might let our guard down because we still remember the old reliable network newscasts with the likes of Bob Schieffer of CBS. Bob, America turns its lonely eyes to you, I guess. But that's in the dustbin of yesteryear.
The grievance-fueled right wing - do they really know what they're mad about? - has burgeoned so much, it has infected our top office-holders. Surely it infected our congressperson here in western Minnesota, Michelle Fischbach. Here was Fischbach's official statement on Jan. 6, 2021, when she voted against certifying the election results:
Today, I plan to vote for the objections to the certification of electoral votes in certain contested states. This election was shrouded in allegations of irregularities and fraud too voluminous to ignore. In order to fulfill my duty to the constitution and my constituents, I believe there must be a proper investigation to consider these claims.
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| Michelle Fischbach |
And what about your own election, Congressperson Fischbach? Should we trust those vote totals either?
Fischbach used the tired word "allegations." Allegations and ten cents will get you a cup of coffee, Congressperson Fischbach (but not a cup at Caribou Coffee LOL).
What a loose word: "allegations." Anyone can present allegations about anything. Even the weather, maybe?
To this day I remember Fischbach using the word "voluminous." Suspicions about voting integrity that were "voluminous," eh, congressperson? Has any subsequent analysis of the 2020 election confirmed these serious allegations you were so quick to point out? If not, what was the basis for them? The talk of Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, along with some other of the weirdo types?
Those two presented themselves as attorneys for Trump, and you must understand that an attorney's first duty is to be an advocate for the client. So that's what Giuliani and Powell were doing, really, and so what if they were just throwing stuff up against the wall? Don't you realize that's what attorneys have to do sometimes? (I might add "especially defense attorneys.")
But a TV enterprise like Fox News should have had sharp minds capable of putting all that talk in the proper context. Demand real evidence at a certain point. But the lure of "keeping their numbers up," including stock price, was too overwhelming. In the end it took a lawsuit to ferret out the truth: Fox allowed itself to be manipulated by the lawyer types who just wanted to be advocates for Trump.
Why does a president need his own lawyers anyway, apart from his closest advisors in official positions (people who are probably top-notch lawyers in their own backgrounds)?
Trump needed his own barking dog eccentric "lawyers" to do his bidding. Why couldn't he just speak for himself? Air some grievance and then just go away. Be magnanimous maybe. An ex-president is always a prime candidate to be a goodwill ambassador for America. And then he might be remembered fondly. Or at least undo some of the harm he did as president. Inject bleach for covid? Need I go on?
You all might want to ask Congressperson Fischbach if she still stands by her statement on January 6. Even Tom Emmer voted to certify the election results. Are we just a bunch of hayseeds out here in western Minnesota? Our former state representative Jeff Backer voted against condemning the violence of Jan. 6. Keep in mind that once democracy is discarded, anything can happen. All bets are off. Trump as autocrat could lead to a monumental catastrophe. We narrowly averted this the first time. Now what?
We'll soon find out if Trump is an actual rapist. If this is affirmed, I doubt it will dull the zealous support he has out here. The Apostolic Christians will not be fazed, ditto with the Good Shepherd parishioners of rural Morris. But what about the wives of all the men? In light of the alleged rape aspect? The "Access Hollywood" tape? Or the proposed nationwide abortion ban led by Lindsey Graham and others like him?
Has something gotten into the drinking water?
The sage Joel Heitkamp of KFGO Radio says an argument with a Trump supporter always ends the same way, with the Trump person saying "so what?"
"So what" about America, I guess. Except I will keep trying to penetrate the fog.
Addendum: I'm publishing this on May 1, "May Day." A nostalgic delight for yours truly to look back to when Barb Spaulding's third graders of St. Mary's School went around town with their May baskets. How nice they never forgot the Sun Tribune office! I miss being around activity like this. May 1 is also a Communist holiday. I'm sure the St. Mary's kids weren't taught anything about that!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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