Whew! Now that the first set of the January 6 Select Committee hearings has gaveled to a close, I can finally exhale. Since the nonprofit that I started more than a decade ago focuses on strengthening democracy and good governance, colleagues are asking what I think, especially after the recent highly publicized FBI search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Will Attorney General Garland’s Justice Department indict the former president? Will Trump be able to run in 2024? Does he still retain the same level of support from his ardent followers?

The questions obscure the hearings’ historic success and miss the main takeaway: democracy triumphed. The American system for the peaceful transfer of power prevailed.

In my view the hearings were successful in three ways. First, they demonstrated that our democratic system, grounded in the rule of law, works. Second, they reached a global audience, demonstrating that liberal democracy can deliver for its citizens and be a viable alternative both to China and growing autocracies. Third, they provided a roadmap for other countries that might face similar challenges.

Despite detailed insurrection planning and massive efforts to dismiss the assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump and his supporters, many within the Republican party (i.e., “it’s just legitimate political discourse”), our institutions were strong enough to support a comprehensive investigation involving all three branches of the federal government as well as several battleground states. We tested federalism at its core in an orderly process that the entire world witnessed.

The hearings themselves represented a crucial milestone because it was not always clear to the global community –or to American citizens – that we would be able to mount an open, transparent bipartisan investigation. Without an exhaustive investigation we easily would have become a declining democracy unable to prosecute an attack on our government from our own citizens.

An exhaustive investigation was a much-needed shot in the arm for democracy writ large, because democracy is under siege worldwide. Traditional U.S. allies are facing multiple challenges with governments new or influx in Britain, Germany, France and Italy, while other countries, including Hungary, Brazil and the Philippines are steadily advancing toward autocracy.

Since my democracy work focuses on Africa and its diaspora, I exhaled because the hearings were an opportunity to begin to reverse some of the skepticism I and others faced in our work during the Trump Administration. 

In another marker of success, the hearings provided a malleable blueprint for any nation seeking to hold accountable parties plotting to overturn the results of free and fair elections. In standout leadership, Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney deftly used the power inherent in our institutions to demonstrate that there can be grave consequences for violent actions against the state. The hearings reinforced the rule of law and demonstrated that ultimately even a person who once was arguably the most powerful individual on earth can be fully investigated.

The committee’s work could be useful for countries in the process of examining and strengthening their own governance institutions. For example, Tanzania has specifically mentioned the U.S. in discussions of imminent constitutional change. Barbados has recently established a Constitutional Reform Commission which has a broad mandate to “craft a new Republican Constitution” for the country. Ghana and Chile are two more countries deeply immersed in constitutional reform.

September Challenges Ahead

Even with success in the first set of hearings, major challenges loom for the Committee. And we cannot allow obsession about Donald Trump’s future to hinder us from keeping our eyes on the prize. When the Committee reconvenes, I’ll particularly be watching for its response to the possibility that multiple federal and state agencies destroyed evidence relevant to the investigation, and for Committee members’ handling of the issue of fake electors, counterfeit slates intended for submission for January 6 certification from the seven swing states that gave Biden the electoral college win.

I will also look for testimony examining the outsize influence of social media and the competition between Republicans and Democrats to control the narrative during high profile events like the hearings. The entire world watched a defeated president fuel the huge lie that an election win was stolen from him. Amplified by partisan mainstream media, “Stop the Steal” metastasized into an aggressive movement that morphed into an insurrection and still remains an essential truth for close to 70 percent of Republicans. How does a democracy grapple with a fraught media landscape and still maintain First Amendment protections?

There are myriad other challenges for the January 6 Select Committee, but the hearings are already an unprecedented success. I’m exhaling regularly.

About the Author:

The Honorable Vivian Lowery Derryck is a 2009 ALI Inaugural Fellow and the founder of the Bridges Institute, a non-profit she launched in 2009 to help strengthen African governance and democracy. After the murder of George Floyd she launched a new project, Concerned Citizens Defending Democracy, focused on promoting free and fair elections and combating structural racism in the U.S., and then sharing lessons learned globally. Previously, she served as the Assistant Administrator for Africa of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of State, Vice President of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and  President of the African-American Institute. A career Africanist, in 2021 she was named a Knight of the National Order of Mali by the Malian government.