Good News, but Likely Too Late
Published at 08:07 on 15 November 2021
Mind you, this is very good news. Whatever I go on to say later, it had to happen, and although it happened late, better late then never.
However, the clock is running out and time is not on the side of the pro-democracy forces. The results in Virginia and New Jersey proved that yes, there are enough stupid and apathetic people that, added to the rough third of the USA that harbors decidedly fascist sentiments, there are plenty enough votes out there to let the fascists back into power.
And once that happens, there will be decisive fascist majorities in Congress and the select committee, as weak and ineffectual as it has been, will be no more. Donald Trump will be Speaker of the House (there is no requirement that the Speaker be an actual member of the House; this is mere tradition), and soon enough, president once more.
This is, of course, not a 100% certainty. It is still theoretically possible for the Democrats to start taking this existential threat to an open society seriously, but odds strongly disfavor it. As I have written before, it is at this stage likely that the whole damn system, both the government and the political culture it exists within, must first burn to the ground before there can be any significant hope of something better emerging.