There is no shortage of issues of high concern.

For many, crippling inflation tops their list. For others, it might be escalating crime or the opioid epidemic or intractable homelessness or the all-too-present impacts of climate change.

Others will cite post-pandemic learning loss, or teenage mental health or racial healing, or a porous border, or gun violence, or women’s health in a post-Roe era, or skyrocketing housing costs, or a busted supply chain, or a callousness of our culture.

All are priorities, to be sure. My purpose is not to diminish the importance of any of these topics. However, in assessing America’s urgent agenda, all of these issues, no matter how consequential, are distinctly secondary.

One issue, the very preservation of our democratic republic, is dominant and overshadows all others.

Repeat: The essential underpinnings of our constitutional system have been under attack. Until we address those who so cynically, cavalierly put that all at risk and then reinforce those core, foundational institutions, none of these other matters can take center stage.

As we look back 50 years on the Watergate scandal that exposed paranoia-fueled political corruption and a coverup that reached the Oval Office, there is a through-line from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump. Without offering any excuses for Nixon and his sordid minions, that was rather petty stuff compared to Trump’s full-scale, seditious assault on the very central tradition of the peaceful transfer of power.

What is most remarkable so far about the hearings of the House committee on Jan. 6 is the virtual lack of any alternative theory or set of alternative facts as to what took place and why.

No matter how divided the country might be, there is quite widespread understanding of what transpired that fateful day. These hearings have plenty of shock value but lack the mystery of the Senate Watergate hearings a half-century back in which new information was steadily revealed.

In a contorted way, Trump gets points for transparency. Long before the 2020 election, he had previewed that he would not go quietly if the results were not to his liking. He asserted time and again that fraudulent mail ballots would be the only explanation for his defeat.

Trump foreshadowed everything that unfolded after the election culminating in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The question before us is not about what took place, but about what we make of it and how we respond. An Atlantic magazine headline this past week asked, “Can the hearings overcome American indifference?”

If indifference is the dominant reaction of most citizens, then in some way we deserve our fate.

Of course, there is a contingent out there – too large, for sure, but still a minority – who buy into Trump’s evidence-free big lie. Trump is a master at exploiting the fears and resentments of others for his personal gain. There are suckers aplenty and an ample supply of Kool-Aid to go around.

Those who know little and are Trump’s dupes should be regarded with pity. Those who know better but choose to deny the obvious truth in favor of kowtowing to Trump’s masses deserve every bit of scorn that comes their way.

In that category are Colorado representatives Doug Lamborn and Lauren Boebert along with their spineless House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and nearly 140 of their colleagues who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election just hours after living through the Capitol nightmare wrought by such denial. That vote alone should disqualify the whole lot of them from serious circles.

The saddest, most disreputable folks these days are those Republicans who have put on hold both their integrity and judgment out of some misplaced party loyalty or just to keep their head down. Asked about the 2020 election, their new refrain is some variation of: “We just don’t know. Some say it was legitimate; some say not. It’s unclear, but we need to move forward.”

In this category is the Republican National Committee which describes the subversion and treachery of Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse.”

By that standard, they must similarly regard those who flew the planes into the trade towers on Sept. 11 as simply having “an honest difference of opinion.”

Other Republicans see Trump for the clear and present danger he constitutes, though somehow make it okay by reciting, “but…tax cuts,” “but…judges,” “but…Biden,” “but, but, but.”

Then there are those who rationalize it all by pointing to the civil unrest following the May 2020 death of George Floyd. In doing so, they manufacture an equivalency between spontaneous public uprising (even as we condemn those who chose violence and broke the law) and a concerted, orchestrated attempt to upend a lawfully decided, not-all-that-close election for the nation’s highest office.

Heroes are in short supply. Into that role has stepped none other than Liz Cheney. Her opening statement as part of the January 6 committee’s first televised hearing could not have been more apropos.

“Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a time when Donald Trump is gone. But your dishonor will remain.”

Trump’s Republican Party being what it is, Cheney may well lose her primary election in Wyoming come August. She is waging a vigorous campaign, but clearly understands there are higher callings and more urgent imperatives than reelection.

Is there any doubt as to how the history books will treat Cheney decades from now versus what they will have to say about McCarthy, Boebert and other such invertebrate creatures?

At stake is nothing less than essential faith in our elections. Unless we fully call out and excise this poison, what will stop the losing side in the next election from pursuing a similar path? And in the election after that? How does our democracy survive such a never-ending storm?

This is America’s job one. In the meantime, all other issues, however urgent and critical, compete for second place.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for ColoradoPolitics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at?EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann.