OPINION:
In the last 20 years of his long and incredibly active life, Daniel Boone, one of the most famous members of the Virginia General Assembly, crossed the Mississippi River and spent much of his remaining time with Shawnee Indians, the tribe who had earlier in his life held him hostage for six months.
Boone, who had achieved fame by blazing a trail for settlers moving westward into Kentucky, ultimately preferred the company of the Shawnee rather than settlers in Missouri. That is almost certainly because he had more in common with the Indians than with the settlers.
The world can be that way. People closing in on the end of their time here sometimes have more in common — experiences, sentiments, disappointments, regrets, resentments — with their peers than with others.
I mention this because the political system of the United States is now locked in two pointless and almost precisely analogous conversations: one about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and one about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. We are suffering through them in large measure because of the unrestrained resentments of the two senescent leaders of our warring tribes.
Former President Donald Trump never tires of talking about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Fair enough. However, the simple reality is that the election is finished, and the winner has been certified. Nothing — literally nothing — is going to change that. At some point, you have to shake hands and walk off the field.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — the other old man trying to return soup in this particular deli — never tires of talking about Jan. 6. The truth of those events is being adjudicated, as it should be, in the federal judicial system. The show trial that is the select committee on Jan. 6 is not going to — and is not designed to — lead to any greater understanding of those events. It is intended to weaponize the events against the Republicans in the 2022 election cycle.
On a side note, that’s why it is so bad that the fundamentally unbright Reps. Elizabeth Cheney and Adam Kinzinger participated in the committee.
The good news and the simple truth are that most Americans have moved on from these debates. The survey data from a variety of sources is pretty clear. Inflation, crime, energy, education, Ukraine, etc., are all more important to voters than indulging in extended chit-chat about an election and an event that are now vanishing in the rear-view mirror.
What then remains? The two aging warriors — Mr. Trump and Mrs. Pelosi, more alike than either would care to admit — insisting that their mostly private and personal grievances be taken as legitimate public discourse.
Was there fraud in the 2020 elections? No doubt. Was it material to the results? After 17 months, no dispositive evidence indicates that it was. Have state legislatures fixed whatever election integrity problems may have existed? Yep.
Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? Of course not; no one even brought weapons. If an unarmed crowd of middle-aged suburbanites could overthrow the government, we have bigger problems than we think. The courts are doing their job, handing out pretty modest sentences for what were pretty modest crimes.
America is a land almost completely disinterested in its recent past, and for most people, its distant past as well. That is both good and bad. In this moment, our collective amnesia is probably for the best. It would be better if our elders could make peace, at least within themselves.
For the rest of us, it is time to recognize that while autopsies are always informative and sometimes entertaining, 2020 is over. We need to proceed accordingly.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is the co-host of “The Unregulated” podcast. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.