Startling testimony and powerful words have to lead to action, but so far no one has offered a plan for what to do next
The hearings of the House Select Committee on January 6th have been going great. Each session has offered a gripping narrative of the efforts of President Trump and a small army of his acolytes to corruptly hold onto power after losing the 2020 election first in the balloting and then in their court challenges to those results. Every hearing has included shocking new revelations, often from the direct testimony of members of the White House staff or other Republicans and sometimes from contemporary documents or communications discovered by the committee during its investigation. The committee’s members have each taken turns leading the questioning of witnesses, with none of the grandstanding so common to most other congressional hearings. And many have spoken eloquently about the importance of the story they are piecing together of a power-hungry president willing to knowingly bring down violence on his political enemies and those, like Vice President Pence, who wouldn’t do his bidding. Whether you’ve watched every minute live (like me) or just caught the highlights on the news or elsewhere online, you have to admit the committee has vastly exceeded the initial expectations for its work.
There’s just one problem. At some point, these hearings have to end. And so far, I have yet to hear anyone say what we are supposed to do then.
Rep. Jamie Raskin closed out today’s hearing with a warning. “The political scientists tell us that authoritarian parties have two essential features in common in history and around the world. They do not accept elections when they lose and they embrace political violence as legitimate. The problem of incitement to political violence has only grown worse in the internet age. This is not the problem of just one political party, it is the problem of all of us now. American democracy is a precious inheritance,” he said. “Constitutional democracy is the silver frame, as Lincoln put it, upon which the golden apple of freedom rests. We need to defend both our democracy and our freedom with everything we have and declare that this American carnage ends here and now,” he said. “In a world of resurgent authoritarianism and racism and antisemitism, let’s all hang tough for American democracy.”
Defend democracy with everything we have. Hang tough. These are fine words but they don’t include a call to action. So I went looking for answers, Googling “how to defend democracy.”
The top result took me to a page on the website of the League of Women Voters, a fine old civic organization that has experienced a bit of a revival since 2016, where it has a list of ten ways to defend democracy. They include: signing the League’s voter petition to ensure that elections remain fair, free and accessible; becoming an e-activist (meaning, sign up to receive updates from the League); volunteer (to what is not clear); donate to the League’s Defend Democracy Fund; go to community meetings; register to vote; run for office; and write letters to the editor. How are any of these supposed to carry the January 6th committee’s dire warning forward is unclear. That’s not surprising — the League’s list was written six years ago and hasn’t been updated since then.
Protect Democracy, another fine group that was launched by a bunch of Obama Administration lawyers in response to the 2016 election, gives worried Americans two ways to “help protect democracy”: 1) “Donate to help us to scale up our efforts to educate, advocate, organize, and litigate on behalf of the values we all hold dear,” and 2) “Sign up to receive updates that will keep us all informed about the threats we face and how we can fight to protect our democracy together.” Give us, the professional democracy defenders, money and sign up so we can ask you for more money, basically.
In 2018, Eleanor LeCain wrote a piece for The American Prospect noting the many ways that democracy was in danger in America and pointing to the development of state-level hubs for local advocacy groups doing work fighting voter suppression, restoring voting rights to ex-felons, and advocating for political reforms. She argued that a national hub was needed to “provide comprehensive strategic direction, more media coverage, and resources to the states such as training, messaging and funding.” She also suggested that such a hub could form and train a core group of people dedicated to defending democracy full time, launch a communications initiative, run a speaker’s bureau and coordinate other forms of messaging. In other words, more talking and messaging by professionals.
I don’t know about you, but none of this feels like an answer to the question: what should ordinary Americans do to defend democracy.
I have a few suggestions.
1. Don’t leave the job to others. Run for office or volunteer to help work at polling sites.
2. Get visible. The anti-democracy side isn’t hiding its colors; you see people wearing MAGA hats, the “Back the Blue” American flags with the black bar running through them on lots of front lawns. Pro-democracy forces need to be visible, to each other and everyone else. Like this.
3. Join or form a local group devoted to democracy. Don’t just give to national organizations; your greatest potential influence is on the people closest to you. Plus being involved in civic action with other people near you is a great antidote to feelings of powerlessness or despair. This is where local civic organizations could step in, but except in rare cases most are still avoiding taking positions on the democracy front, despite the warning signs. We need an updated map showing where local groups are active on the issue and support for starting them and keeping them going.
4. Get ready to push for criminal proceedings when the January 6th hearings end. There are signs the Justice Department is already contemplating charging people high up in the White House and around it who planned or abetted the insurrection, but a big public clamor to “lock them up” can only help. (Of course, after open and fair trials.)
Most important, find the others. A lot of us are watching the hearings — 20 million tuned in for the first one, during prime time. Many of those, if not more, will likely tune in for what may be the committee’s final hearing next Thursday, which is expected to be in prime time. There are a lot of other people paying attention. But attention alone will not change the course of history. Only organizing does that.
Micah Sifry is a Medium columnist and the author of several books on tech and politics, including The Big Disconnect: Why the Internet Hasn’t Transformed Politics (Yet) and WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency. He also writes a weekly newsletter called The Connector, where he focuses on movements, organizing and democracy. You can also follow him on Twitter at @mlsif.
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