The dereliction of duty was really too great for those words (which admittedly mean less to me than to the Representatives, both veterans), and what he did do too outrageous, even 18 months later, to fully grasp: instead of condemning the violence and calling his goons off, ad lib repurposing the Big Lie as a Lost Cause. The presentation made him appear out on a limb on his own, as his staff of lackeys tried in vain to contain the damage, but we don't really know how he felt; my guess is that with FOX on one screen and friendly senators and kooks on the phone he was riding high on what he saw on other screens, intoxicated by twitter waves of those mad with excitement or fear at what was unfolding: chaos, "American carnage," his thing. Coup plans A, B, C, D ... had all failed (I don't think he planned for this particular mayhem to happen) but, hey, the vote count might yet be postponed, a state of emergency declared, his presidency continue. The election wasn't over until he said it was.
It's all at once too awful and too tawdry to believe (the Trump brand). But once the drama of the unfolding presentation ended, with a series of perfectly pitched calls for accountability and civic responsibility from Kinzinger, Luria and Cheney, it was hard to maintain the hope that any of this truthtelling will be enough to make a difference. As Adam Kinzinger put it, The militant intolerant ideologies, the militias, the alienation and the disaffection, the weird fantasies and disinformation, they're all still out there ready to go. That's the elephant in the room. Indeed! And he didn't mention those many other elephants not in the room, impervious and impenitent, confident that gerrymandering, contrived culture wars and a demoralized populace will soon hand the reins of power back to them.
