The Right to Bear Responsibility

Yesterday, police in New Mexico made an arrest of a Republican who ran for office there, lost, didn’t concede – because he probably said that Trump didn’t concede, so he wouldn’t either because he was a MAGA King – and visited the homes of several Democratic public officials to yell at them and then organized a plan where these officials and other Democratic officials (six in all) had their homes shot at, including that bullets went through the bedroom where one of their 10-year-old daughters was sleeping.

Oh, and the Republican candidate was a felon, with 17 felony convictions, who spent seven years in prison.  Because, yeah, that’s who the GOP is okay with running for office in their party.

And as far as I can tell, there has been no outrage or outcry or criticism from Republican officials in Washington.  Because, hey, why would they?  It was too on-brand.

Meet your 2023 Republican Party.

Is it fair to tar the entire Republican Party because of the horrific actions of one local candidate?  If I was doing that, no, it would not be fair.  But that’s not what I’m doing.

What is fair is to point out that this man was the nominee of the Republican Party in New Mexico who was okay with a GOP candidate with 17 felony convictions whose actions stem from a foundation of what the Republican Party has been pushing – election denial, refusal to concede, the entitlement of MAGA, the use of guns to settle your difference, and that the party leaders are being near-silent and not making clear as loudly as possible that shooting up the homes of Democratic officials is horrifying, wrong, and criminal, and almost killing a child is ghastly.

And something else to consider, as the GOP takes this all in stride: 

No one was killed.  But that’s only from luck.  A child could have been killed.  It could have been a massacre.  But if only one Democratic official would have been killed, that alone would have been brutally grim enough.  We’re all taking this story calmly and analytically for the pure reason, for the sole reason that everyone in these six families is alive.  But just imagine if even one person died, and then, after you get past that horror, imagine if they all did – the officials, their spouses, their families, that 10-year-old girl.

It's not an outlandish thing to imagine.  It's outlandish not to imagine it.  An organized gang intentionally shot up six houses.

And Republican “leaders” are near-silent about it all.

And I only say “near-silent” to be fair, uncertain if there’s a few, or just one Republican in a leadership position who said, at the very least, “Oh, my, that’s bad.”

There is an expression, “We sure dodged a bullet on that one.”  The Republican Party sure dodged a bullet on that one.

And it’s fair to paint the Republican Party with this, too, because – as much as this story can just been seen as an isolated incident (because, after all, who could have foreseen that running a candidate with 17 felony convictions who spent seven years in prison could have gone wrong…) – it’s not an isolated incident.  The Republican Party bears responsibility for it, and more.

For starters, there was that whole January 6 Insurrection thing, breaking into the Capitol, looking for members of Congress to kill, a hangman’s noose built outside on the grounds.

And the incident where Speaker Nany Pelosi’s home was broken into, and her 82-year-old husband was beaten and put in the hospital.

And the incident where a Democratic campaign office was firebombed.

And violent threats against mother-daughter campaign workers in Georgia who had to move out of their homes to safety, after Trump publicly attacked them for non-existent campaign fraud – and he’s still attacking them, only two weeks ago.

And threats of death against Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell after new Speaker Kevin McCarthy smeared Swalwell with lies about being under FBI investigation from contact with a Chinese spy – when the FBI has not only publicly stated that Swalwell was cleared of all wrongdoing, but had privately briefed Congressional leaders that Swalwell had done nothing illegal and even properly cooperated with the FBI.

Yes, yes, I know there was a crazy, lone gunman who shot at Republican Congressmen playing baseball, putting Rep. Steve Scalise in the hospital about six years ago.  It was awful and widely condemned by Democrats.  But this isn’t a “both sides” thing.  Democrats don’t push guns, they aren’t election deniers, they don’t rile up their base to overthrow the government, they don’t target Republicans to be threatened.  It was a terrible, isolated incident six years ago that was condemned.

But this – and all the others?

One of the several reasons Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was kicked off House committees was because she threated the lives of some Democratic members of Congress.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) put out an anime video that show Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being brutally killed.  And President Biden being attacked.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) sent out Christmas cards with her family proudly surrounded by rifles and firearms, and made threats against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar who she suggested was a jihad terrorist.

When Rusty Bowers, Speaker of the House in Arizona, testified publicly before the January 6 Select Committee he spoke about threats that have become a “pattern of our lives” by groups that have set up outside his home, with guns brought into the neighborhood.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified before the January 6 Select Committee about how he and his family have had to deal with ongoing violent threats, including a home break-in. 

During the time Trump was in office, he regularly declared groups he didn’t like as Enemies of the People and would energize his base about the supposed dangers of these “enemies.”

On the night when Trump debated Joe Biden, he was asked about condemning white supremacist groups and instead looked into the camera he directly told one of the most prominent, the Proud Boys, to “Stand back and stand by.”

Regularly we’d read about another gun massacre when the shooter made clear he was driven by manifestos founded on the rantings of Trump.

When Kyle Rittenhouse traveled across state lines and killed two people in a protest, he was invited to meet with Trump Mar-a-Lago and lionized by the GOP – and still is.

And so much more.

This isn’t a both sides issue.

And  yes, yes, there are threats made by Democrats against Republicans.  But nowhere even remotely on an equal basis, and not at all on this violent level – let alone with the actual shootings and home break-ins.  After all this pattern began with Trump prompting his base about enemies of the people, stolen elections and summoning his party faithful to Washington for an Insurrection to overthrow the government. 

​This isn’t a both sides issue.

The NRA isn’t on both sides either.  And they can’t dismiss the shootings in New Mexico as just a sick, crazy person.  He was a GOP candidate for public office – who put together a team to commit the shootings.

And the Republican Party is “near-silent” about it all.  Except when making the threats.  It is their Language of Violence that sets the spark, that tells people that the violence is all right, indeed necessary, and when the leaders of the GOP say nothing when the violence occurs, that only serves to confirm that the violence is all right.

And when Republicans took control of the House by a razor thin majority, what did new Speaker Kevin McCarthy do?  The House leaders of the Insurrection weren’t penalized, no, instead he rewarded them -- people who enabled the effort to overthrow democracy -- to positions of important committees.

Jim Jordan was made chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was put on Homeland Security.   (No, that isn’t a typo.)

Lauren Boebert was named to House Oversight that handles investigations.

And Scott Perry, one of the most aggressive Insurrectionists, is also on House Oversight.

So, the message of this Language of Violence from Republicans is clear.  Violence against your opponents is to be embraced.  Of course it is -- it's one of the core tenets of fascism.

For all the GOP's silence after there are shootings and violence against Democrats, they speak loudly to ensure it keeps happening.

This is today’s fascist Republican Party.