I am still angry at Friday’s move by the Republican National Committee to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
The January 6 rioters and insurrectionists were not engaged in “legitimate political discourse”. Any suggestion that there was a legitimate political question whether to overturn the 2020 election, and that that’s what the insurrectionists were doing, is (as even Mike Pence says) un-American. And by doing Trump’s bidding and by propagating Trump’s big lie about the election, is the RNC is participating in un-American activities.
This is obvious to anybody who’s not in thrall to Trump. And the dwindling band of sane Republicans know this.
In “Utah Republicans need to answer hard questions about what their party has become”, Salt Lake City Tribune columnist Robert Gehrke writes:
Roughly 150 police officers were injured on that day. Countless are still dealing with the trauma. More than 750 of the rioters have been charged with crimes.
All of that violence and destruction to try to upend a democratic election and the peaceful transfer of power this nation has prided itself upon since its creation.
This, according to the Republican Party — not the fringes, the recognized leadership of the party — is now “legitimate political discourse.”
And this is the way Trump and the RNC’s leaders want it. They call riots and insurrection “legitimate political discourse” because they think this will get them back into power. Like the Confederates of 1861, they figure that their side has the guns and the brave men and that their opponents are spineless, so they think they will win any fight they get into. How wrong the Confederates were! and how wrong Trump and his RNC cronies will be!