Republican Congress Could Investigate Real ‘Threats to Democracy’

Glenn Reynolds writes for the New York Post about life after the Jan. 6 committee.

Congressional Democrats have nearly wrapped up the political circus generally known as the Jan. 6 Committee.

That panel was supposed to look into the allegedly democracy-shaking events of Jan. 6, 2021. Though this has been called an “insurrection,” it was closer to a campus mob occupying the dean’s office than a coup d’etat. 

The actual violence that day pales in comparison to the bloody and fiery riots that raged across American cities in 2020, with approval, tacit and otherwise, from Democratic politicians and media (who described those riots as “fiery but mostly peaceful”).

Now Americans are more concerned with skyrocketing prices, economic stagnation and the threat of a nuclear war in Europe, after some unwise comments by President Joseph Biden gave Vladmir Putin an apparent green light to invade Ukraine. (The White House staf walked them back, as they so often do with the dodderer-in-chief’s remarks, but the damage was done).

Indeed, after a disastrous almost two years in office for Biden, things are looking grim for the Democrats. The midterm elections loom, and everyone seems to expect the Democrats to get a shellacking, which they richly deserve.

If that happens, the question is what a new Republican congressional majority should do. The answer is lots of things, but I have one suggestion: It’s time for some hearings of their own.

How the United States went from an energy-exporting nation with a booming economy, low gas prices and no new foreign wars to an energy-short nation with a stagnating economy, soaring prices for gas (and everything else) facing a potential nuclear confrontation with Russia deserves some looking into.

America has a president who’s not all there mentally, a doddering figure controlled by those around him. He was elected despite hiding out in his basement during a close election season. Scandals involving his son Hunter — and him — were banned from the media and from tech platforms in the leadup to the election.