History Will Remember This Massive Winter Blizzard
As much for its likely political wallop as its snow and cold
History may well judge the massive winter blizzard bearing down on Iowa and much of the nation, with life-threatening freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls, to be as historically significant for the political wallop it will likely deliver as for the snow and cold it is bringing.
I ran some quick errands Friday night, just as the storm and its plummeting temperatures were beginning to move into this region. The stores I visited and the streets I traveled on to get there - all of which were packed this past week - were eerily empty for a Friday night before a Sunday Christmas.
I blame the blizzard. Its actual and predicted ferocity and its rapid approach are keeping folks at home, here and across the country.
That so many millions of Americans are stuck at home - at this moment in our history - is likely to have major political ramifications.
Here’s why:
The blizzard is landing at precisely the same time dozens and dozens of transcripts from the House January 6 Committee investigation of Donald Trump’s attempted coup are landing, as well.
Americans who might have otherwise given the committee’s release of the transcripts a passing glance during the busy holiday season are, thanks to the blizzard, now hunkered down at home, simply trying to stay safe and warm. They will be there for the next several days, and likely well into next week.
Suddenly, they have a lot more time to pay attention to the news.
As a result, Americans are going to end up much more aware of - and will have a much better understanding of - the sordid and sickening facts the transcripts reveal than they likely would have been without this storm.
Americans would have been interested in the transcripts anyway, but with so many millions now hunkering down at home in front of the TV, that interest and understanding is likely to increase exponentially.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump and his corrupt gang. The run up to Christmas and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day are traditionally very slow news days. The avalanche of news coming out of the January 6 Committee now means the transcripts - and the coup plotting and massive, widespread corruption they reveal - will continue to dominate the news for days if not weeks. That’s partially because the transcripts contain so much news, but also because there will be so little news happening elsewhere during this otherwise slow news period.
The massive blizzard is predicted to be a multi-day monster. That will give Americans plenty of time to do something else during the storm in addition to take in the glaring revelations of unprecedented corruption and lawlessness by a President and those around him.
They will. have lots of time, as well, to think about what they are learning from the transcripts.
That’s good news for America and our democracy.
It’s very bad news for Donald Trump and his gang of insurrectionists and coup plotters.