Please pay attention to what happened on Jan. 6

To Editor;

In Fiona Hill’s new book “There is Nothing For You Here: Finding opportunity in the 21st century,” one of America’s foremost Russian experts writes: “As a result of all this eagerness at the top to embrace fictional narratives for purely personal and domestic political purposes, the United States under Trump joined the historical pantheon of states promoting conspiracy theories. America was no different from Hitler’s Germany or czarist, Soviet, and modern Russia. 

George Orwell’s 1984 moment — of state manipulation of information to deceive and repress the population — came to fruition in 2016-20 with the QAnon conspiracy and Trump’s eventual Big Lie — that he had won the presidential election.”

A democracy cannot survive if half the population won’t accept simple truths; the truth of a president’s citizenship, the truth about election results, the truth surrounding Covid, science and medical experts, or the truth of Jan. 6.

For the first time in our nation’s history, we did not enjoy the peaceful transfer of power; for the first time since the War of 1812, our capitol was besieged. And we all watched it unfold on TV. 

One can only imagine what Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, John McCain and Gerald Ford, all Republicans, would have thought about what played out on TV on Jan. 6.

The ongoing investigation in Congress is vital to the future of our democracy. I believe we are likely to discover elected officials were involved either before or after the insurrection. 

If so, how can this be viewed as anything but sedition? Patriotic Americans, please pay attention to what this cult of personality has done to our body politic.

Tony Hamlin 

Milo