The final Jan. 6 insurrection committee hearing last Thursday presented what, in any other historical context, would have been a series of major bombshells. But in this shell-shocked nation, numbed by years of daily Trumpian outrages, the idea of a president and his advisers colluding to organize a violent coup no longer seems to spark the sustained outrage it deserves.
Americans should be outraged nevertheless because the evidence is clear: Donald Trump worked actively to subvert an election and seize power through a violent attack on Congress. An astonishing number of Americans still don’t grasp why that was such a bad thing, as if it’s OK to take up knives, guns, bear spray, battering rams and military-style body armor to invade the Capitol simply because an election didn’t yield the desired result.
Evidence abounds that Trump knew weeks ahead of the November 2020 election that his defeat loomed, and he colluded with outsiders to stay in the White House anyway. Contacts were established with right-wing militias to lead a military-style assault on the Capitol. Trump advisers Roger Stone and Steve Bannon helped with coordination.
