Will People Watch the January 6 Committee Hearings?

Does it matter if they don’t?

I have a 9/11 section on my bookshelf. Do you? On the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks last year, I wrote about the best 9/11 books. These books are ones I actually try to read every couple of years — the best ones are 102 Minutes and Fall and Rise, released in May 2019 and tragically underread — just to remind me of the horror of that day and how much it changed American life forever. I also read them as a promise to myself I made on that day. I was in New York City that day, a day that was so awash in horror and confusion that I vowed that, someday, when the dust had settled and we had perspective on everything that had happened, I’d learn everything I could about it. I’d read every book, I’d watch every documentary, I’d listen to every story. It was so awful that educating one’s self on what happened felt like a public duty. You had to do whatever you could to make sure that it never happened again.

I thought this exact thing on January 6, 2021. What I was witnessing was so disorienting, so unfathomable, that I found myself staggered. How had it come to this? What could we do to make sure nothing like this ever occurred again? You can make a strong argument that it was the worst, most destabilizing day in American history since September 11, and a day we, once again, owe ourselves to learn about, to understand, to internalize, so that we can prevent it. Because — like September 11 felt at the time — it’s possible we wouldn’t survive another.

This was one of the primary reasons for Congress’ creation of the January 6 committee in the first place, to provide a 9/11 Commission-esque report that explained, once and for all, definitively, what happened. If Congress cannot do that, I am not sure what Congress is for.

This week, starting on Thursday, Congress will begin to tell us what it learned. Thursday night will be the first of four primetime hearings that release the commission’s findings, which will ultimately be compiled into a 9/11 Commission-type book. I find myself as rapt to hear what the Commission says as I was the 9/11 Commission’s findings. I have to know. We deserve to know.

But — and this is the real question — are people going to care? Is it going to make a…