Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
Feb. 4, 2021
By Joni Ashbrook
Shortly after the MAGA mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, I was optimistic that Republicans would finally hold former President Donald Trump accountable.
Surely they couldn’t defend Trump’s seditious act of inciting violent groups as his last-ditch effort to overturn a fair election and steal the presidency?
One week after Trump’s failed coup, I felt hopeful seeing one of Trump’s top enablers GOP leader Kevin McCarthy on the House floor saying, “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”
McCarthy also said that Republicans were wrong in claiming Antifa was responsible for the riot and that Trump needs to “accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President-Elect Joe Biden is able to successfully begin his term.”
Surprisingly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would consider convicting Trump at his impeachment trial for inciting the attempted insurrection.
But my hopes quickly melted like hair dye off Rudy Giuliani’s head as McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump and began blaming others for the failed coup.
Later, McConnell, and 44 other cowardly GOP senators, tried unsuccessfully to avoid being forced into saying whether Trump was guilty of inciting insurrection by falsely claiming the impeachment trial was “unconstitutional.”
And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was outraged during the 2016 GOP presidential primary that Trump didn’t disavow the KKK, and she wanted the nominee to be “someone who is going to hold Republicans accountable.” Now Haley refuses to hold Trump “accountable” for inciting white-supremacists by railing against his impeachment on Fox News saying, “Give the man a break!”
Besides GOP leaders’ astounding lack of moral courage, recently the New York Times reported that an alarming number of GOP members of Congress have ties to the groups that stormed the Capitol.
For example, Colorado’s newly elected Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has close connections to militia and other extremists groups.
While rioters were storming the Capitol, Boebert tweeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s location, perhaps at the same time a Trump supporter was videotaped gleefully claiming she wanted to shoot Pelosi “in the friggin’ brain” but she couldn’t find her.
During the riot, Boebert also tweeted “Today is 1776,” a phrase the mob chanted. It’s no wonder Pelosi recently claimed, “The enemy is in the House.”
Boebert is just one of many GOP House members who want to bring their guns onto the chamber floor although it’s prohibited, and they refuse to go through the recently installed metal detectors.
Trump was an extremely divisive president, but he was great at bringing violent extremist groups together for an insurrection. QAnon is one of the many groups Trump embraced that the FBI labeled a “domestic terrorist threat.”
QAnon is an internet conspiracy group that believes Democrats are a Satanic pedophile ring that eat children and Trump is their savior. Seriously.
Boebert is a QAnon supporter along with Georgia’s new Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who has a trove of Facebook videos making racists, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic comments.
Shockingly, Greene also supported Facebook posts that advocated violence against Democrats and the FBI along with one that suggested putting a bullet in Pelosi’s head.
Greene also believes Sandy Hook Elementary and the Parkland high school mass shootings were “false flags” staged to increase firearm regulations.
Parents of children murdered in mass shootings are calling for Greene to resign, but instead she was seated on the education committee.
Many GOP members are still spreading Trump’s big lie that the election was stolen primarily by Black voters. What are the GOP’s “core values” if they don’t repudiate lies, violence and racism or defend the Constitution?
