Smoking Cannon

As the January 6 hearings commenced, an old and trusted friend commented to me that he thought only the production of a smoking gun would be likely to change any minds in our current calcified, hyperpartisan political climate. Many pundits have echoed that opinion.

Yes and no, say I.

We all understood going in that for the roughly 30% of Americans who would push their own mothers off a cliff if Donald Trump told them to, nothing — nothing! — will change their minds about the Insurrection or The Former Guy’s culpability for it. Not even a smoking gun. In his hand. On video. With Trump shouting, “I did it.”

Because the fact is, there has been a smoking gun in plain view ever since that tragic afternoon itself — a smoking cannon, in fact. A 155mm self-propelled howitzer. A Gerald Bull-style Supergun that can launch a Volkswagen-sized satellite into outer space.

We’ve known all along that the Insurrection was no spontaneous riot, no church picnic that got out of control, no false flag operation, but a well-planned, coordinated attempt by the Trump campaign to use political violence as part of an effort to stop the count of electoral votes and steal the election for their guy. And it came at the end of a months-long (even years-long) Republican effort to undermine confidence in the results of the election full stop, thereby creating…