The Playbook We Didn't Know We Needed

It feels like a scene from a different era, doesn't it? A Republican congresswoman, daughter of a conservative dynasty, finding common cause with a progressive Democratic law professor. Add in a young, conservative Air Force veteran, and you have the core of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

For a moment, they held the nation's attention, not through partisan shouting matches, but through something far more radical: a shared, sober-minded defense of the constitution. Liz Cheney, Jamie Raskin, and Adam Kinzinger were, for a time, three of the most important people in America. They weren't just investigating a riot. They were performing a kind of political field surgery, trying to stitch back together a shared understanding of reality.

That work is over. The committee is dissolved. Two of its three most visible members are no longer in Congress, one pushed out by her own party. It would be easy to file the whole affair under "noble failures" and move on. The news cycle certainly has.

But that would be a profound mistake. What they created wasn't just a report. It was a playbook. And as we head into a summer where the very foundations of democratic governance are once again being openly questioned, it's a playbook we desperately need to dust off and study. Not as a history lesson, but as a practical field guide for what comes next.

The Committee Wasn't Just About January 6th

It’s crucial to remember what made the January 6th Committee so different from every other congressional hearing we’ve grown accustomed to. It wasn't about scoring points or creating clips for cable news. It was a deliberate exercise in civic education, designed for a country that had forgotten how to listen.

The genius of their approach was its methodical, almost relentless, commitment to narrative. They understood that you don’t counter a tidal wave of misinformation with a dry recitation of statutes. You counter it with a better, truer story. And they built that story brick by brick, not with pronouncements from Democrats, but with testimony from Donald Trump’s own people: his Attorney General, his White House Counsel, his campaign staff, his own daughter.

Each hearing was a chapter. They laid out the timeline, established the motives, and revealed the pressure campaigns in plain, human terms. They showed their work. They let the evidence—and the people who lived it—speak for itself. This wasn't about persuading die-hard partisans. It was about creating an unimpeachable record for the rest of us, for history, and for anyone willing to engage in good faith.

In doing so, they modeled a form of patriotism that has become tragically rare: the patriotism of process. The patriotism that believes in rules, in evidence, in oaths of office, and in the peaceful transfer of power as a sacred, non-negotiable principle. It was a quiet rebellion against the politics of spectacle and grievance.

Three Principles for a Pro-Democracy Playbook

When you strip away the specifics of subpoenas and testimony, the Cheney-Raskin-Kinzinger axis operated on a few core principles that any citizen can learn from. This is the heart of their playbook, and it’s surprisingly applicable to our own lives, right here, right now.

• The Primacy of Unimpeachable Facts. The committee’s power came from its discipline. They resisted the urge to speculate or editorialize. Instead, they built their case on a foundation of verified, first-hand accounts, often from hostile witnesses. In a world drowning in whataboutism and political spin, they anchored themselves to the truth. For us, this means getting serious about our own information diet. It means prioritizing primary sources, reading past the headlines, and having the discipline to say, "I don't know enough about that to have a strong opinion yet."

• The Courage of Moral Clarity. Cheney, Raskin, and Kinzinger were laser-focused on one central question: did the sitting president attempt to overturn a free and fair election to remain in power? They refused to get sidetracked by other political squabbles. Their partnership was not built on agreeing about tax policy or healthcare. It was built on the shared, non-negotiable belief that American democracy is worth defending. This is a powerful lesson. We don't have to agree on everything to agree on the most important thing: the foundation of self-governance. We can find common cause with neighbors who hold different views on many issues if we share a commitment to the democratic process itself.

• The Necessity of Unlikely Alliances. A Constitutional scholar, a conservative scion, and an Evangelical veteran. On paper, it makes no sense. In practice, it was the only thing that could have worked. Their very presence together sent a powerful message: this isn't a partisan issue. It's an American issue. This principle requires humility and a willingness to be politically uncomfortable. It means reaching across aisles that might feel more like canyons. It's the hardest work there is, and the most essential.

The opposite of authoritarianism isn’t just voting. It’s relationship. It's knowing the people on your block well enough to trust them.

This is where the rubber meets the road for the rest of us. Building these unlikely alliances is not something that happens on TV or on social media. It happens in person. It happens in backyards, in parks, and across picnic blankets.

Why This Still Matters in the Shadow of Project 2025

The work of the January 6th Committee can feel like it belongs to the past, but its lessons are aimed squarely at our future. We are now facing an organized, well-funded, and explicit plan to dismantle the structures of American civil service and consolidate power in the executive branch. It’s called Project 2025, and its playbook is available for anyone to read online.

It details plans to fire up to 50,000 career civil servants and replace them with political loyalists. It proposes deploying the military for domestic law enforcement and asserting direct presidential control over federal agencies that are, by design, supposed to be independent, like the Department of Justice.

This isn't a secret plot. It is a statement of intent. The authoritarian playbook is on the table.

Countering Plans with Presence

How do you counter a 900-page plan to centralize power? You don’t do it with a 900-page counter-plan. You do it by building distributed, decentralized, and resilient networks of citizens who are committed to the principles of democracy.

You counter their plan for a hyper-centralized government with our plan for a hyper-local community. You counter their vision of loyalty to one person with a lived reality of loyalty to one’s neighbors and one’s oath to the Constitution. The work of the J6 Committee gives us the model: we must be clear-eyed about the threat, anchored in facts, and willing to work with anyone who shares our fundamental commitment to the Republic.

From the Capitol Halls to Your Backyard

It’s tempting to feel helpless in the face of such large-scale challenges. What can one person, one family, one neighborhood possibly do? The answer is: everything.

The principles that animated the January 6th Committee are scalable. They work in the well of the House of Representatives, and they work in your cul-de-sac.

Finding common ground with a neighbor who voted differently is practicing the “unlikely alliance” principle. Hosting a small backyard get-together to talk about local issues and shared values is the neighborhood-level version of creating an unimpeachable record of what matters. It’s about replacing the abstract anger of the internet with the concrete reality of a shared sandwich and a shared patch of grass.

This is the whole theory behind the Summer of ReLove 2026. It’s not about waiting for a political leader to save us. It's about remembering that in a democracy, the leaders are supposed to be us. The ultimate authority resides in the relationships we build, the communities we strengthen, and the public spaces we claim as our own.

These simple acts of gathering are a quiet and powerful affirmation of democratic life. They are rehearsals for a more connected and resilient society. Organizing mini-gatherings in your own backyard is how you build the trust and social fabric that a strong democracy requires. It’s how you turn a group of houses into a neighborhood.

Cheney, Raskin, and Kinzinger did their part. They held the line at a moment of profound crisis. They wrote the first draft of the playbook. Now it's our turn to take that playbook and run it in our own communities, on our own terms, one picnic at a time.

What you can do this week

1. Re-familiarize yourself with the playbook. Watch just 15 minutes of the January 6th Committee hearings on YouTube. Don't watch the punditry; watch the testimony from a Republican official like Cassidy Hutchinson or Rusty Bowers. Notice the steady, fact-based approach and remember what it feels like.

2. Practice an unlikely alliance. Identify someone in your life—a neighbor, a coworker, a family member—with whom you disagree on politics but share a basic value (loving your kids, wanting a safe community, etc.). Reach out and ask them about their family or their garden. Don't talk about politics. Just practice connection.

3. Put democracy on the calendar. Don't wait for a crisis to build community. The time to prepare is now. Take the next step and find a Protest Picnic planned near you, or better yet, grab a few neighbors and decide to host your own. It can be as simple as hot dogs in the driveway. The important part is starting.