{"id":3615,"date":"2023-01-07T03:23:47","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T09:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3615"},"modified":"2023-03-19T20:58:23","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T01:58:23","slug":"two-years-after-jan-6-democracy-is-in-distr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3615","title":{"rendered":"Two years after Jan. 6, democracy is in distress and the House is a total mess<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the second anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, the nation still shifts through the debris of American democracy\u2019s worst day. The\u00a0House select committee\u00a0on the Jan. 6 spent months investigating the insurrection and\u00a0recommended to the Department of Justice\u00a0that it bring criminal charges against former President Donald Trump related to instigating the Capitol invasion and his failure to act against it.
\nThe tragic events of Jan. 6 are not ancient history, according to a recent national poll conducted by\u00a0Morning Consult. Six out of every 10 Americans believe the federal government should continue to investigate the insurrection.\u00a0Some of those involved have already been found guilty of seditious conspiracy, several trials are ongoing \u2014 and a majority of voters think the criminal penalties are fair or not harsh enough.
\nTrump\u2019s candidacy for a second term is a living and breathing reminder of the events of that day. It was his refusal to accept the will of the voters in 2020 that set the invasion in motion, according to the committee\u2019s investigation. Not surprisingly,\u00a0most people believe he is responsible\u00a0for the invasion of the Capitol.
\nThe attack on the Capitol was an attack on the will of the people. The invaders who seized the house of the people reportedly wanted to\u00a0keep Trump in office, despite President\u00a0Joe Biden\u2019s\u2002decisive victory over his GOP opponent among voters and in the Electoral College.
\nDemocracy is still under siege. The sad saga of that fateful day did not begin or end with the invasion or the expulsion of insurrectionists. Twice in the last six presidential elections, the winner of the popular vote hasn\u2019t reached the White House.
\nToday, the impasse in the U.S. House of Representatives over the election of the Speaker is another demonstration of the decline in our political institutions \u2014 with more than a dozen rounds of voting so far.
\nJob No.1 for the majority party is to pick a House Speaker. Three days in and Rep.\u00a0Kevin McCarthy\u2002(R-Calif.) has been unable to secure the role despite a GOP majority in the chamber. The new GOP House majority had one job and couldn\u2019t get it done without exposing the institutional anarchy that is at the party\u2019s core. The difficulty Republicans have had choosing a Speaker of the House is a dramatic sign of the fragility of our political system and a symbol of its inability to effectively function as a legislative body in these troubled and turbulent times.
\nMajority rule is outdated in the Republican Party, and the \u201cit\u2019s my way or the highway\u201d approach seen by his GOP defectors is their latest shiny object. Prominent\u2002obstacles\u00a0to McCarthy\u2019s bid for the Speaker\u2019s chair include Republicans Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) \u2014 who\u00a0were among the 147 GOP lawmakers who voted to overturn the election results, apparently championing the insurrectionists and Trump\u2019s bid to undermine the Constitution and the rule of law. Gaetz even\u00a0voted for Trump to be Speaker. This small group of agitators \u2014 as high as 21 throughout the Speakers ballot \u2014 have stymied the will of the GOP caucus. They failed to take down Biden, but they have already\u00a0weakened McCarthy\u00a0even if they aren\u2019t able to depose him.<\/p>\n

Thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the second anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, the nation still shifts through the debris of American democracy\u2019s worst day. The\u00a0House select committee\u00a0on the Jan. 6 spent months investigating the insurrection and\u00a0recommended to the Department of Justice\u00a0that it bring criminal charges against former President Donald Trump related to instigating the Capitol invasion and his failure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1399,1236,2923,2878,1142,1345,2891,1230,1186,1198,3165],"class_list":["post-3615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-democracy","tag-democrats","tag-elections","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-jan","tag-mccarthy","tag-politics","tag-trump","tag-two","tag-america","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8027,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions\/8027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}