The hearings in the United States Congress offer hope in a dark time for American democracy. Will Donald Trump finally be held accountable?
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For a long time it seemed that the attempted coup d’état in the USA on 6 January 2021 would have no consequences for Donald Trump and his people.
The Republican Party did not dare to take the absolutely necessary showdown with Trump.
On the contrary, the few Republicans who stood up to the elected president were frozen out of the party. There was no impeachment case against Trump, as it should have been.
And it didn’t turn out to be the great political and moral washing-up that the US so badly needed.
–But with the 6 January hearings in Congress, which continue tonight, the Americans have had the opportunity to get to the bottom of what happened.
Testimony, also from several of Trump’s former trusted associates, gives us insight into the planning on the part of the ex-president – and into the chaos that reigned in the White House during the critical weeks and days before the attack on Congress.
When the committee to investigate the events was set up, the Republicans refused to participate.
Only the two frozen representatives from the Republican Party, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, joined the congressional investigation committee.
These two have shown courage and integrity, unlike what we have seen from the vast majority of their party colleagues.
The Republicans probably regret not being part of the hearings. It is the Democrats and the few decent Republicans who participate in the hearings, who set the agenda.
–And while the right-wing’s most important TV channel, Fox News, initially stopped broadcasting the hearings to its viewers, this part of the American press has now also given what is happening in Congress wide coverage. Including live broadcasts, live from the Congress.
In this way, the background to the attempted coup d’état is revealed, step by step, in front of every single American who follows the news. Regardless of where they are on the political spectrum.
Regular polls have shown that a disturbing number of Republican voters believe Trump’s big lie that the election was stolen from him in the fall of 2020.
With the truth being revealed day by day through the hearings, we can only hope that some of those who have swallowed these lies so far will think twice.
Perhaps what we are now seeing is an example of the American Constitution, and its institutions, being strong enough to heal a divided nation.
As so often before, in American history.
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