Katherine Miller, our newest expert on democracy and elections, takes a closer look.
For many of us watching the Jan. 6 committee hearings, there have been moments when the tragedy and irreality of what we have seen has come fully into focus. Watching Donald Trump on video struggle and then admit "yesterday is a hard word for me" was just one such moment, what he said perhaps ringing truer today than he ever could have predicted. |
The hearings have provided viewers a way to narrate and understand events that millions of Americans continue to reckon with and which, as the midterm primary season continues, remain far from fully settled. |
Katherine Miller, a writer and editor who joined Times Opinion last month to cover democracy and elections, has written a trenchant and searching examination of the role Representative Liz Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the committee, has played in the hearings and what impact it may have on her bid for re-election to the House in the upcoming Republican primary in Wyoming. |
Katherine, who was in the room for the eighth hearing, examines Cheney's participation and the hearings themselves: |
"Cheney has argued that personal agency matters since Jan. 6 took place: Individuals comprise institutions and individuals shape political reality, regardless of whether they intend to do so." |
As Katherine shows, the story of Jan. 6 is in part about solitary political actors trying to wrest control of forces they cannot subdue — a description that could apply as easily to Cheney as to Trump. |
Katherine, who was previously a political reporter and editor at BuzzFeed, is the latest addition to Opinion's expanding coverage of democracy in America, particularly the challenges and threats to fair elections, free speech, voting rights, political disinformation and the peaceful transfer of power. We've published a growing number of guest essays, columns and editorials on these topics and held 16 focus groups so far this year with citizens across the country to explore questions around democracy and life in America. |
Katherine will be writing pieces and editing guest essays on all of this as the midterms unfold and as we head into a consequential two years of political debate and reckoning ahead of the 2024 presidential election season. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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