Midnight in Chernobyl is about the disastrous explosion at
Chernobyl in 1986 that made the area around the plant so uninhabitable that it
is still dangerous 36 years later. That fact, however, did not matter to the
Russia troops who recently invaded Ukraine, because they marched right through
the area surrounding the plant. The meltdown was caused by the incompetence and
dishonesty of the Russia government, and it nearly led to the destruction of
the entire plant.
When I was at the library recently, I noticed that Adam
Schiff’s book, “Midnight in Washington” was in the non-fiction section – so I
picked it up.
The book starts on January 6, and goes backwards from there.
Just as the problems in Chernobyl were a result of Russian
incompetence and dishonesty, the insurrection on January 6 were the result of
the incompetence and dishonesty of Republicans in Congress, but also by the
incompetence and dishonesty of the 45th president.
The subtitle on the cover is “how we almost lost our
democracy, and still could”.
So far, I’ve read 14 or 15 books about Donald J. Trump – and had
vowed to not read anymore. To a large degree, the ones that I had read so far
highlighted the fact that Trump is more than a little crazy. Many of the books
also touched on the corruption that was a big part of his administration.
Schiff’s book goes into much more detail on the corruption
that existed at all levels in the Trump administration, and why Trump had to be
impeached twice, even though the makeup of the Senate (and the fealty of the
GOP) meant that he would never be convicted.
Nearly every day, we are learning additional facts about the insurrection
that took place on January 6. The January 6 committee has interviewed hundreds
of witnesses, and has received more than 100,000 pages of documents. Mississippi
Rep. Bennie Thompson has been able to validate a lot of statements attributed
to Trump and Pence without their testimony. Much of the evidence the committee
has released to far has come from White House aids and staff. So far, the
committee has not issued subpoenas to either Trump or Pence. Since Trump would undoubtedly
would be a hostile witness, there is little point in asking him any questions
at all, and I doubt that the committee would gain a lot of new information by
interviewing Pence.
The committee plans to make public their report sometime in
June, and it should make for very entertaining reading.
The danger that we fact as a society is that Trump still has a
firm grip on the Republican Party. He was the preferred 2024 candidate at this
year’s CPAC candidate, and Ron DeSantis (who would not be any better) came in
second.
60% of the 2020 Republican voters still don’t believe that Joe
Biden won the election, and their ignorance continues to be reinforced by the “talking
heads’ of FOX news, who still claim that the riot that occurred on January 6 ‘was
not that bad”.
In Arizona, Kari Lake is the leading Republican candidate for
governor – and she would be a total disaster for the state. Like some of the other
candidates, she believes that Trump actually won the 2020 election – and she
has held a fund-raised at Mar-A-Lago, Today’s Arizona Republic had a front-page
story that compared her campaign to the one that Trump started in 2015 – and it
is eerily familiar.
It's impossible to predict how the 2022 midterms will come
out, but am not optimistic that we are going to like the results. However, Adam
Schiff’s closing paragraph should give us some hope:
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