Pelosi is fighting a war that Republicans started. Their aim is to never lose an election.

Two things happened on Jan. 6. First, there was that domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol and second, 147 Republicans returned to the U.S. Capitol AFTER said domestic terrorist attack and gave the legislative equivalent of a stamp of approval to said domestic terrorists by voting to overturn the results of a free and fair presidential election.

On this day, it became the official position of many (most?) in the Republican Party to reject democracy. It is crucial that we never forget this sequence of events ever again.

So when I read headlines like “Pelosi goes to war with GOP over Jan. 6,” or “Jan. 6 select committee to open investigation amid political chaos and controversy,” or "McCarthy-Pelosi feud boils over," it drives me absolutely crazy. As a former Republican, I can tell you: Those headlines are playing right into the Republican Party’s hands.

Not a typical partisan squabble

By rejecting the addition of domestic terrorist sympathizers like Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks to the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken a principled stand in defense of democracy. You don’t get to investigate a crime you helped commit.

In fact, their exclusion ensures that the committee’s proceedings will in fact be free from “chaos” because Jordan and Banks won’t be interrupting whoever is speaking every five seconds or injecting questions based on radical conspiracy theories in an effort to detract from the panel’s core mission.

The news media need to do better here. This isn’t your typical inside-baseball Democrat vs. Republican leadership squabble. Don’t treat something as serious as this with such frivolity. Too much is at stake.

If bipartisanship was the true goal of Republicans in Congress, they would have supported the effort to initiate a 9/11-type bipartisan commission. They didn’t.

Since Jan. 6, some Republicans in Congress have rewritten history. Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde compared the events of that day to a “normal tourist visit.” Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar called participants in the attack “peaceful patriots.” Former President Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican Party, in an audio interview for a new book by Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker, “I Alone Can Fix It,” called them “loving.” 

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The GOP’s endgame is to create a world in which they and they alone win elections. Any election that doesn’t result in a Republican win is labeled fraudulent and should be overturned. On what planet is it rational to expect that the speaker of the House would let anyone who subscribes to this brand of authoritarianism participate in an investigation into the autocrats behind a domestic terrorist event?

Only in the never-never land that is Beltway-media world would this sequence of events be interpreted as “Pelosi goes to war with GOP.”

The speaker has demonstrated her commitment to facts and truth by appointing Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to the panel. Kinzinger was a darling of the Tea Party movement that preceded Trumpism, and Cheney has a higher conservative rating with multiple conservative groups than Rep. Elise Stefanik, whose colleagues chose her to replace the ousted Cheney in the House GOP leadership hierarchy back in May. You really have to be doing some Olympic-level contortionism if having a Kinzinger and a Cheney on a panel doesn’t meet your qualification for bipartisan.

'Unprecedented':In vetoing Jordan and Banks, Pelosi safeguards history, democracy and Capitol attack probe

Going forward from Tuesday, when it first meets, the Jan. 6 select committee should be reported on as bipartisan. Its hearings, findings and proceedings should be labeled bipartisan. There should be no mention of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy or Jim Jordan or Jim Banks in any story about this committee’s work going forward. The panel that has been constructed is bipartisan and substantive. Efforts to portray this committee as anything but that are playing right into the hands of domestic terrorists and their allies.

There is no 'both sides' in this saga

The architects of “The Big Lie” that culminated with the attack on Jan. 6 are dependent on the media clinging to some fantasy that the Republican Party is a good-faith actor in the demise of our democracy. They are counting on the principle of objectivity forcing journalists to present events as “both sides” on equal footing and give their spokespeople equal time and space to continue advancing their narratives – even though those narratives are propaganda designed to radicalize a segment of the American public against fundamental democratic principles.

Sad to say, so far, it’s worked.

Mark it on your calendar:January 6, 2025 could be the date American democracy dies 

The truth is we live in a time where there are clear heroes and clearly people who've made a different choice. It does no one any good to try and tiptoe around that. Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks are among the latter. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and the other patriots working to get to the truth of one of our nation’s darkest days are the heroes. It’s that simple.

The war that we are in, the war to protect our democracy, wasn’t started by the Democrats or Nancy Pelosi. It wasn’t a war they were looking to fight. But it sure as hell is a war that they don’t intend on losing.

Kurt Bardella, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and an adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is a former spokesperson and senior adviser for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. Follow him on Twitter: @KurtBardella