The Jan 6th Committee held its first public hearing last night. The hearing did not reveal much that we have not already known, but its revelations were compelling and incontrovertible. The Insurrectionissimo of Mar a Lago is replaying his taped denials and lies, and, I read, all of the Republican candidates for the Senate in Missouri have echoed their Master’s interpretation of the hearings.

By now we are familiar with this Trumpian reaction to the truth, sc., if you are caught in a lie, just lie louder, lie longer. But I am hoping to see some indignation from sane and honest Americans. Trump did not just get caught with his had in the cookie jar. He has been caught attacking our Constitution and way of life, something no president has ever done before.

Why has no president ever before attacked the Constitution? Because, good, bad, or indifferent, none of them was an enemy of the United States and none of them was an out-and-out criminal. Trump and those close to him are not like us. They do not come from the American mainstream but from latrines in which honesty is a disability and all that matters is personal victory, however obtained.

We must not shrug off Jan 6th and all that led up to it and all that followed upon it. The Insurrection was as great a threat to the United States as Secession, maybe a greater threat, because Secession would have diminished the United States, but the Insurrection threatens it very life. We are still under attack, and if America does not ostracize Trump and his followers, we will have ceased to be America.