22 July—Last night, after catching up on the new season of “What We Do in the Shadows,” I caught several minutes of the prime-time extravaganza at the U.S. Capitol. God and everyone else only knows my utter disdain for Donald Trump. But I almost felt sorry for the former scumbag-in-chief last night.

(Gee, opening and closing a paragraph with the same words. Maybe I should try a villanelle next. That’s a poem normally consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza being repeated alternately in the succeeding stanzas as a refrain—and forming a final couplet in the quatrain. And, to make it easier, only two repeating rhymes in the whole poem. Now that’s real poetry. The description itself is a prose poem.)

Back to theater arts. Last night’s 6 January Select Committee hearing clearly was staged for a political rather than a juridical or legal purpose. It was scripted, with the Democrat and Republican congresspersons [sic] on the bench, as it were, obviously reading their lines on a teleprompter. The witnesses and video exhibits were cued. And I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the witnesses had been rehearsed.

Last month, committee chair Bennie Thompson (who, quarantined with COVID, wasn’t actually in the room for last night’s performance) had even referred to “the original script.”

I don’t believe that anybody connected with the hearing has tried to conceal that the production was professionally staged.

So what was accomplished last night? Nothing new, really. There was never any doubt—all the way back from 6 January 2021—that Trump had incited the Capitol riot by his incendiary rhetoric and refusal to ask his moronic mob to stand down. But last night the point was certainly driven home beyond any possible, let alone reasonable, doubt.

On the other hand, from the bit that I actually saw, it’s clear to me that, with the balance of his mind impaired (more than usual), Trump couldn’t accept reality and had little or no idea what was going on or that he was the motivating force. One of the side-effects of sociopathic narcissism.

From what I saw last night, Donald Trump was nothing but a pathetic loser. He still is.

It also occurs to me that last night’s congressional performance was essentially a rehearsal for a trial. In addition to doing due diligence, both sides in criminal and civil litigation prepare for trials by producing, scripting, rehearsing, editing, and rehearsing again and again performances by their witnesses and presenting evidence in order to most effectively sway judges and/or juries.

It would be nice if Attorney General Merrick Garland did something before a Republican congress sees to it that he can’t. And that brings to mind another point about the 6 January hearings. Last night’s was supposed to be the last picture show. But it seems the Democrats finally had an epiphany: Given the short memories of the fæx populi (i.e., voters), they need something to take with them to the polls closer to the election, something to save the congressional Democrats’ unworthy ass. Enter Trump, pursued by an elephant.

Donald Trump may not be running in 2022, but he could very well be the best thing the Democrats have going for them . . .