Inflation, abortion and crime are dominant issues in the midterm election, but last week’s public hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was a valuable reminder of what else is at stake in November.
The connection between the attack and the midterm election couldn’t be clearer. The committee’s hearings have established that former president Donald Trump was prepared before the 2020 election to call foul if he lost — that he willfully ignored aides who told him after the voting that he had lost, then brazenly brushed aside those who told him his conspiracies about widespread fraud were unfounded and sometimes ludicrous. Trump continues to traffic in these same false claims today.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Republican candidates who have bought into the lie that the election was stolen are on ballots this fall. If they win, they pose potential threats to future elections. The threats will become even more serious if an…
This article was written by Dan Balz and originally published on www.washingtonpost.com