The par­ty line response to the House Select Com­mit­tee’s ini­tial prime­time Jan­u­ary 6th hear­ing, from America’s right-wing media and Repub­li­can House lead­ers, seems tak­en from those “Naked Gun” cop movies.

“Move on, noth­ing to see here,” bum­bling Los Ange­les police detec­tive Frank Drebin would tell wit­ness­es to a fire or explosion.

“For­get­tably minor” is how Tuck­er Carl­son, on Fox News, described the 2021 insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capitol.

Lat­er in the evening, Lau­ra Ingra­ham chimed in: “How does a guy putting his feet up on Nan­cy Pelosi’s desk put democ­ra­cy at risk?”

The answer was deliv­ered by Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Liz Cheney of Wyoming, vice chair of the House Select Com­mit­tee to Inves­ti­gate the Jan­u­ary 6th Attack on the U.S. Capi­tol: “Over mul­ti­ple months, Don­ald Trump over­saw and coor­di­nat­ed a sophis­ti­cat­ed sev­en-part plan to over­turn the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and pre­vent the trans­fer of pres­i­den­tial power.”

Dur­ing the Senate’s 1973 Water­gate hear­ing, Sen­a­tor Howard Bak­er, R‑Tennessee, asked the famous ques­tion: “What did the Pres­i­dent know and when did he know it?” The answer, con­firmed by audio from con­ver­sa­tions record­ed in the Oval Office by a secret tap­ing sys­tem, was that Richard Nixon, our 37th Pres­i­dent, was in on the bur­glary coverup and pay­offs from Day One.

The House pan­el, on Thurs­day night, told twen­ty mil­lion tele­vi­sion view­ers of the attempt­ed seizure of pow­er by our 45th Pres­i­dent after he was vot­ed out of office. “Don­ald Trump was at the cen­ter of this con­spir­a­cy,” said com­mit­tee chair­man Rep. Ben­nie Thomp­son, D‑Mississippi. Of even greater con­se­quence, Thomp­son added: “The con­spir­a­cy to thwart the will of the peo­ple is not over.”

And that is why the events of Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021, go far beyond being mate­r­i­al for his­to­ry. The bid by Trump to over­throw will of vot­ers in 2020 is quite pos­si­bly due for a repeat should “The Don­ald” run in 2024. While such Repub­li­cans as Bak­er helped block Nixon, Repub­li­cans in Con­gress appear ready to do Trump’s bidding.

As FNC refused to air Thursday’s hear­ing, the bull-necked Sean Han­ni­ty was describ­ing the House hear­ing to his view­ers as “the dullest, the most bor­ing, there’s absolute­ly noth­ing new.” Per­haps Fox hosts didn’t want view­ers to hear back­stage words of a Pres­i­dent they lion­ized: “Just say the elec­tion was cor­rupt and leave the rest to me and Repub­li­can congressmen.”

Huh? View­ers tuned into the hear­ing saw film of a noose and chants of “Hang Mike Pence.” The Vice Pres­i­dent was chair­ing Con­gress’ count of elec­toral votes and had reject­ed Trump’s demand that he throw out results from swing states.

The com­mit­tee has unearthed Trump’s reac­tion as he watched from the White House. Said Cheney: “The Pres­i­dent respond­ed with this sen­ti­ment: ‘Maybe our sup­port­ers have the right idea… Mike Pence deserves it.’ ”

“You will hear evi­dence that Pres­i­dent Trump refused for hours to do what his staff, his fam­i­ly and many of his oth­er advis­ers begged him to do: imme­di­ate­ly instruct his sup­port­ers to stand down and evac­u­ate the Capitol.”

The dis­guise for Trump’s attempt­ed coup has been a series of attacks on the integri­ty of our elec­tions – believed, the polls tell us, by a major­i­ty of Repub­li­can vot­ers – that the 2020 elec­tion was stolen.

If Fox view­ers changed chan­nels, they would have seen a video of then-Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr tes­ti­fy­ing on his post-elec­tion con­ver­sa­tion with Trump.

“I told the pres­i­dent it was bull!@#$: I didn’t want to be part of it,” Barr told com­mit­tee inves­ti­ga­tors.” A Trump cam­paign lawyer, Alex Can­non, brought sim­i­lar find­ings to White House Chief of Staff Mark Mead­ows. In Mead­ows’ mem­o­rable response, “So there’s no ‘there’ there.”

The tweets of House Minor­i­ty Leader Kevin McCarthy and such folk as Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz (R‑Texas) are cease­less­ly filled with praise for the police, and unabat­ing anger at Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers’ actions fol­low­ing the mur­der of George Floyd in Min­neapo­lis two years ago.

Where is their sym­pa­thy for the U.S. Capi­tol Police?

Liz Cheney put it best: “I say to my col­leagues who are defend­ing the inde­fen­si­ble: There will come a day when Don­ald Trump is gone, but your dis­hon­or will remain.”

A respect­ed offi­cer, Car­olyn Edwards, was first on the force to be injured in the insur­rec­tion, suf­fer­ing a con­cus­sion. She tes­ti­fied on Thurs­day, telling of the scene where insur­rec­tion­ists first broke through:

“What I saw was a war scene. It was some­thing like I had seen in the movies. I could not believe my eyes. There were offi­cers on the ground. They were bleed­ing. They were throw­ing u8p. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slip­ping in peo­ples’ blood. I was catch­ing peo­ple as they fell.” (Edwards man­aged to put out a call for help on the radio. It did not come.)

A day after the hear­ing, Tuck­er Carl­son was on the air decry­ing what he called a “show tri­al,” adding: “The whole thing is insult­ing. They are lying and we’re not going to help them.”

Lying about what?

Barr told Trump there was no evi­dence of elec­tion fraud. Chief of Staff Mead­ows was so informed. Top aide and first daugh­ter Ivan­ka Trump told com­mit­tee inves­ti­ga­tors, “I respect­ed Attor­ney Gen­er­al Barr, so I accept­ed what he was say­ing.” Twen­ty mil­lion peo­ple heard excerpts of Trump’s speech at the White House, and mobs of Proud Boys and Oath Keep­ers march­ing on the Capitol.

In the wake of the damn­ing videos, Trump has thrown both his daugh­ter and for­mer Attor­ney Gen­er­al under the bus, send­ing out this mes­sage yes­ter­day: “Ivan­ka Trump was not involved in look­ing at, or study­ing, ELECTION (sic) results. (She) had long ago checked out and was, in my opin­ion, only try­ing to be respect­ful to Bill Barr and his posi­tion as Attor­ney Gen­er­al (he sucked).”

The House Select Com­mit­tee con­venes again on Mon­day morn­ing. It is expect­ed to fill out Trump’s role in the worst attack on the U.S. Capi­tol since the War of 1812.

Don’t tune this out! An ugly strain of fas­cism is loose in the land, and on the air­waves, and on social plat­forms. It has in its grasp the lead­er­ship of one of our two great polit­i­cal par­ties. Its leader is using the 2022 elec­tion to exact revenge, and plot­ting a run at pow­er once more in 2024.

Trump is not gone.

“Our democ­ra­cy remains in dan­ger: Jan­u­ary 6th and the lies that led to insur­rec­tion have put two and a half cen­turies of con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy at risk,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Thomp­son. “The world is watch­ing what we do here.”

A vari­a­tion on Ben­jamin Franklin’s famous words sums up a ques­tion that all Amer­i­cans should ask them­selves: “A repub­lic – Can we keep it?”