Why Pay Attention to the January 6 Hearings?

Some folks are fascinated by the unfolding narrative of the January 6 hearings, but many ...

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Some folks are fascinated by the unfolding narrative of the January 6 hearings, but many are simply tuning out, feeling it is just more politics. This week David and Curtis help us think through why we should be paying attention to these hearings. They explore some of the underlying stories around the key players involved and how those stories not only impact how we think of these people, but perhaps even how we think of ourselves.

Show Notes:

–Megan N. Fontenot – Exploring the People of Middle-earth: Boromir the Brave

–Brooke Singman (Fox News) – Barr says parents taught him ‘not to care what other people think’ growing up, calls faith ‘indispensable’

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  1. General Darden

    For the second week in a row, I am left wondering "Why did I listen to this podcast?" when it ended. Curtis admits he did not listen to the hearings (because his idol was the GSW, which paradoxically creates anxiety for him: talk about weird psychology and the dopaminic pathway stimulation there...). Then I heard that the hearings really matter, which I believe they do, but only to a certain point. Then I am asked to reconsider what grace means in the context of a secular occurrence and how I as a believer should think through this. This was a meandering conversation that started with no defined endpoint and achieved amazing success.

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    TDit

    I do admire Mike Pence and his staff for the way they stood up on January 6 and refused to break the law. However, I would admire them MUCH more if any of them had provided this information at the impeachment hearings in January of 2021 -- maybe this testimony could have shamed the Republican senators into also upholding the Constitution and making sure the former guy could never be in this office again.

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  3. nancy s

    Hello, Thank you for this podcast, always! In the last few episodes though I wonder if you’ve heard that there is some skipping / repeating happening, usually toward the ten minutes left mark….. It could be my app, but it’s not happening in any other podcasts…. weird? I wasn’t sure how to report this to your technical team, so I am posting a comment here. Thanks again for all your good work at the Dispatch!
    -nancy

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  4. Alex Winkleman

    Being a Warriors fan doesn’t directly influence the game, but you encourage and belong to the fan base without which they would not exist.

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    Ben Connelly

    When I first saw the topic, I wasn’t sure whether it was a good one for this podcast, but it turned out to be a really good discussion!

    The Little Engine that Could - haven’t thought about that in a very long time but it brought back hazy memories.

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    Stomaino

    As a devotee of The Lord of the Rings since 1967 and having lost count after 30 of how many times I have read it, I must dispute Curtis' account of Boromir's redemption. He does not give his life to save Frodo as Frodo has already left the area. He does give his life defending Merry and Pippin. True, the orcs would not have killed them as they were ordered to just capture them. But Boromir would not have known that. He would also not have known that Frodo and Sam had left on the boat. He does redeem himself in his defense of Merry and Pippin and in repenting of his action against Frodo before he died. Frodo does not hear any details of this until after the fall of Sauron. Faramir tells him of seeing the boat with Boromir's body float down the river and that's all he hears at that point. Boromir's body is not received by Gondor, it floats away. All Faramir retrieves is the pieces of Boromir's horn and that is all that Gondor receives.
    One of the parts of LotR that I find applicable to the real world is the idea of ringbearers and how being a ringbearer helps one understand another ringbearer. Sam, even with his brief bearing of the ring, has pity on Gollum and spares his life. In US politics, presidents, especially those that have had the power to wield the Bomb, have had an understanding of other presidents, even when they have been of different parties, hence the idea of The President's Club. Trump has refused to join that club and I doubt if the rest would want him as a member. One might be able to do an essay, comparing the presidents to the human/hobbit ringbearers and which ones they are most like. They might not be like just one. Reagan would be Bilbo or Sam. Trump would be Gollum.

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    1. Jess

      Thanks for your Presidents Club / Ring Bearers analogy. Very insightful!

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        Stomaino

        Thank you!

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  7. Jon Quinley

    M. Pence was a great vp, but he was not afraid of the proud boys - he knows the capitol riot was planned, paid for, and staged by N. Pelosi, because if she had not orchestrated this insurrection, President Trump would have been sworn in for a second term on Jan. 20. Which, by the way, you guys forgot to mention; President Trump won the 2020 elction by a landslide!

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  8. Dicklowery

    Interesting discussion on the Jan 6 actions of V.P. Mike Pence. His four year servility to President Trump was indeed problematic but his correct constitutional/ ethical conduct that he exhibited onJan 6 can be viewed as redemptive. I think that the historical opinion of Mr Pence went up several notches as a result of his Jan 6 behavior.

    Yet I find it difficult to dismiss Mr. Pence’s previous consistent enablement of Donald Trump. If we take Tim Alberta’s reporting in American Carnage as accurate, then when the Hollywood Access tapes story broke during the 2016 campaign, the GOP still had the institutional fortitude and mechanisms to stop the Trump candidacy. Yet it was Mr. Pence’s continued support of Mr Trump that was critical to keep Mr Trump’s candidacy alive. Perhaps this was the last chance. Once Mr. Trump ascended to the Oval Office, then it was too late to prevent Mr Trump from grabbing the levers of the GOP party powers,

    Who knows? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But in an alternate universe a stillborn Trump 2016 candidacy means a less likelihood of the populist takeover/ dominance of the GOP, perhaps a reduced elevation of conspiracies nonsense in the American Conservative party and no Jan 6. Maybe these trends were always present, but without the Trumpkinites controlling the GOP hierarchy and the vapid Trump messaging so pervasive in so called conservative media, then perhaps American political discourse would be less unproductive.

    Mr. Pence holds some responsibility for our current GOP quandary. The American conservative party which previously -imperfectly - provided a vision of limited government, constitutionalism, free markets and leadership in foreign policy has now descended into Trumpist cultish nonsense.

    Hence, thank you to VP Pence for your Jan 6 actions. We only wish you had shown such backbone in October 2016.

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  9. Adam Shields

    I do think there are examples of teachers and others school officials being targeted for political expression.

    I do think there is a difference between personal expression and expression as part of their job.

    The school board members refusing to serve because they are targeted by anti CRT people.

    This piece is about my county and the county immediately north of me. https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-dei-crt-schools-parents

    The woman was pressed to resign from both. She did not really do anything as part of her job but the very existence of her position is what the problem was. In one case she was a DEI coordinator. In the other, she was just a curriculum expert for social studies. But in both cases she was targeted by local and national Anti CRT activists.

    And the two counties are demographically different. In the original, the students are over 80% white. In the second county, the students are predominately minority for nearly 10 years, but the county and board make up is slightly more White, although the political offices outside of the school board are now mostly Democratic. So this is a mostly Republican area and a mostly Democratic area that both ran this woman out of her job over CRT concerns.

    (Of note that the second county in the article had its school accreditation reviewed in part because of racial conflict on the school board and its handling of racial issues https://www.axios.com/local/atlanta/2021/11/15/cogina-cobb-school-district-accreditation )

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  10. Mary Kathleen

    Good points about the need for Christians to engage in institutions. Not watching the hearings; I'm angry this testimony was not solicited immediately after January 6th with the goal of prosecuting a successful impeachment and removal from office. I hope the Democrats who are watching will be impressed that some of the people they loved to hate were pushing back on -- and ultimately shut down -- the Trumpists. In spite of his finally doing the right thing, I don't see Mike Pence as a leader. He seems allergic to confrontation. As a conservative, I'm looking for someone who can be more confrontational than Romney and way more virtuous, agreeable and law-abiding than Trump. Reagan is still a good role model IMO.

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    1. Joy Lamentation

      Please watch the hearings. You will see why they didn’t have time to collect this depth of information ahead of impeachment. The depth and breadth of what we are learning in the hearings shows that they did not even begin to understand how extensive this was on the heels of Jan 6. I keep hearing people who have closely followed these things say how they continue to be surprised at the evidence and testimony being revealed (and there are still many more hearings yet to come). I can say the same as someone who follows and has followed closely. I have watched the hearings from Thursday twice because of how much there was to learn and understand. I really do think it is imperative for everyone to watch first hand.

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      1. Mary Kathleen

        They may not have been able to collect this depth of information but they might realistically have collected enough to remove Trump from office. Sorry, but I already know enough about this to agree that a baseless, corrupt, conspiratorial narrative was launched by crazy, disinhibited, amoral, megalomaniacal people, and publicly given a wink and a nod by those with craven political ambitions of their own, which could have derailed the peaceful transfer of power. Life is short. I don't need to watch the hearings when I could be in my garden.

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          Greenknight

          They could have only removed Trump from office if the Senate Republicans actually wanted to remove him from office... but the fact that they (McConnell) delayed the trial until Trump was out of office, and then used the excuse that they couldn't convict Trump BECAUSE he was out of office showed how disingenuous they were.

          There was no evidence that the impeachment managers could have shown that would have changed the minds of Republican Senators who WANTED to let Trump off the hook.

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          1. Adam Shields

            As an example, Tim Scott has said he is not watching the hearings and will continue to support Trump in the 2024 election.

            There are two parts here. Scott could believe that the hearings are not sufficient to prove guilt. But he also continues to believe that Trump should be the next GOP nominee.

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