Millions of Americans spent last Thursday evening stunned, appalled and amused by the season finale of the congressional hearings into the storming of the Capitol in the waning days of Donald Trump's presidency, and his part in the deadly insurrection.
The slickly planned primetime hearing showed Trump refusing to call off the insurgents for more than three hours as he watched Fox News coverage from the White House dining room on 6 January 2021. The House committee heard how secret service officers protecting the vice-president, Mike Pence, were telling their families they might not make it home alive.
Committee members said the evidence showed Trumplied, betrayed his oath of office and summoned a mob to Washington to try to overturn the presidential election. It was, said Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, "a stain on our history".
But in the heart of Trump country, there's a different take. "I looked up kangaroo court," said Terri Burl, a Republican activist in rural northern Wisconsin, a key swing state that Trump won in 2016 but lost four years later. "I'm like: yes, that's exactly what this is. What's it supposed to prove?" Burl's loyalty to the former president - she was an early member of Women for Trump - has not been shaken by last Thursday's testimony from former Trump administration officials. She watched for almost an hour before giving up because she said that while "the violence and destruction these people perpetrated is not OK", the hearing was a one-sided attack on the former president rather than an attempt to get at the truth.
"There was an annoying and troubling Hollywood-movie look to these theatrical hearings, as if they're acting in a badly done B-list movie," she said.
Denne historien er fra July 29, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra July 29, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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The Saudi football World Cup is an act of violence and disdain
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Murky love stories, nostalgic pop and an in-your-face masterpiece captured our critics' ears in 2024
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From an exuberant mountaineer to a woman defiantly facing the guns of war, here are some of the brave individuals who gave us hope in a tumultuous 2024
Votes of confidence
From India to Venezuela and Senegal to the US, more people voted this year than ever before, with over 80 elections across the world. With rising authoritarianism and citizen-led resistance revealing its vulnerabilities and resilience in the face of unprecedented challenges, has democracy reached its breaking or turning point?
