The January 6th Committee: What's In a Name?

The committee must be more than an accounting of a single day. Much more

I can’t help but be mildly peeved about something that seems sort of silly on the surface but is actually essential to the ongoing investigation by the House into Trump’s attempt to subvert democracy: calling it the January 6th Committee.  Obviously, January 6th was the marque event, insurrectionists storming the Capitol in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, literally shitting on and ransacking the place, while attempting to take Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi hostage is the kind of thing people–and history–notice.  But the name omits two momentous–in my opinion more momentous than January 6th, itself–aspects of the whole horrifying affair.  

The first fundamental thing the name leaves out is that the coup actually began on Election Night 2020, accelerated around mid-December and culminated in the failed attempt to stop the electoral count on January 6th.  In fact, one could make the case that January 6th was evidence of the coup’s failure, not the coup itself.  The real coup–which the committee is doing an excellent job of outlining for the American public, thus far–happened out of public view and behind closed doors.