Why Liz Cheney can get away with things that the Democrats on the January 6th Committee can’t
During this week’s televised January 6th Committee hearing to hold Mark Meadows in criminal contempt, every committee member offered a similar message: Meadows is near the center of what appears to be a Donald Trump criminal plot that the committee is going to unravel with or without Meadows’ help.
Some observers came away from the hearing with the feeling that Liz Cheney, the most prominent Republican on the committee, was more direct and/or aggressive with her rhetoric. That’s a solid observation. But some of those observers are now calling for the Democrats on the committee to “be more like Liz Cheney.” This would be a mistake.
It’s important to keep in mind that if you’re a politically astute person and you already know that January 6th was a criminal plot led by Donald Trump, you are not the target audience for this committee. Why would you be? You’re already on board. The committee’s job is to target average Americans out there who don’t follow politics on a daily basis, and understand that January 6th was a crime, but don’t have a firm feeling one way or the other about how it all relates to Donald Trump.
The committee knows it’s going to end up referring Donald Trump for federal criminal prosecution, in an attempt at putting him in prison. The committee is also going to subpoena a number of House and Senate Republicans, and it may end up referring some of them for criminal contempt.
Accordingly, the committee has to come off as reasonable in the eyes of these millions of average Americans. Committee members can’t risk being seen as overzealous or overtly partisan, or being seen as getting ahead of the evidence. Specifically, the Democratic politicians on the committee can’t risk being seen as getting a kick out of the opportunity to lock up some Republican politicians.
It’s a bit different for Liz Cheney, who is widely known as a right wing Republican. In the eyes of average Americans, she can get away with being more direct with her rhetoric, more openly presumptive about Trump’s guilt, and so on, because the audience understands that she’s going after members of her own party who were involved in a treason plot. Of course she’s pissed off, audiences will reason.
But the Democrats on the committee have to measure their words more carefully, as they attempt to convince average Americans that they’re justified in making a criminal referral to try to put Donald Trump behind bars. There’s a reason they put a notoriously conservative Republican like Liz Cheney on this committee. It’s not just for bipartisanship. It’s that, as a Republican investigating members of her own party, there are things she can get away with saying that the Democrats on the committee can’t.
As far as those of you who already know what the score is, it helps to remind yourselves that you’re not the audience for the January 6th Committee, you’re more like partners with the January 6th Committee. As they earnestly lay out the basic facts and evidence for all to see, your role is to take that evidence and amplify it to those around you who still aren’t sure what to make of Donald Trump’s role in January 6th. The upcoming televised hearings aren’t entertainment for you; they’re a tool that you can use for making your own case to your friends and family members and social media audiences.
