Friday, January 29, 2021

Republicans' Complete Refusal To Denounce Greene's Deranged, Violent, Racist Comments Means They Are Mainstream Party Positions

Nancy Pelosi, January 28, 2021:

It shouldn't be that not only is the President of the United States inciting an insurrection but keeps fanning the flames, endangering the security of members of the Congress, to the point that they are even concerned about members in the House of Representatives being a danger to them.

[Q: What exactly did you mean when you said "the enemy is within"?]

It means that we have members of Congress that want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence on the members of Congress.

* * *

On January 3, 2021, Rep. Lauren Boebert (Seditionist-Colorado) tweeted she "WILL carry my Glock to Congress. Government does NOT get to tell me or my constituents how we are allowed to keep our families safe."

I understand Boebert is an idiot, but can someone explain how her bringing a loaded Glock to her workplace keeps her family (which is presumably many miles away) safe?

Lawrence O'Donnell, The Last Word, MSNBC, January 28, 2021:

[The FBI continues to arrest rioters but] Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today the real problem now is "the enemy within the House of Representatives". [Picture of Marjorie Taylor Greene] This enemy of the House, this enemy of the constitution, is a member of the House of Representatives and she believes all of the worst things that the invaders of the Capitol believe, all of the stupidest things, the racist things, the anti-Semitic things. Marjorie Taylor Greene's public record prior to becoming a member of the House of Representatives was so poisonous that even House Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise actively opposed her candidacy in a Republican primary. She publicly supported assassinating Nancy Pelosi and now she is fully embraced by the Republicans in the House and the Senate. When a poison like that enters your political system and you say and do nothing about it, then you are more than complicit. That means you actually want that poison in your politics because you believe it will help you.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, MSNBC, January 27, 2021:

I actually sense a profound difference between the Republican caucus of last term, the 115th Congress, and the Republican caucus of this term . . . [L]ast term, the Republican caucus was one of extreme fealty to Donald Trump. There were some that were true believers, others that simply remained quiet out of cowardice and out of fear of the president's retribution. But this term, there are legitimate white supremacist sympathizers that sit at the heart and at the core of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. . . .
It increasingly seems, unfortunately, that in the House Republican caucus, Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of Congress, not the other way around. . . . He said he was going to pull Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene aside . . . When I hear that Representative McCarthy is going to pull a member aside who has made white supremacist sympathizing comments, the thing that I think is what is he going to tell them? Keep it up? Because there are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence. There's no consequences for racism, no consequences for misogyny, no consequences for insurrection. And no consequences means they condone it. It means that that silence is acceptance and they want it. Because they know that it is a core animating political energy for them. And this is extremely dangerous, an extremely dangerous threshold we have crossed . . . now we are talking about fealty to white supremacist organizations.

Chris Hayes, MSNBC, January 28, 2021:

Kevin McCarthy doesn't care what Marjorie Taylor Greene says or believes.  He sees, and this is the hard part, probably rightly, that there is political power, energy as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, to be gained from it. Now, today, Kevin McCarthy even made a deeply humiliating, almost-too-awful-to-watch pilgrimage down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of the twice-impeached, possibly soon-to-be-indicted, ex-president. Because there is no line crossed that goes too far for him or for them or for the party. This is where we are, folks. This is what everyone has to acknowledge. There will be no self-regulation, no self-governance, no "did we go too far?", no mea culpas. There will be no growth. This is what the contemporary Republican party, and conservative movement right now, is.

Zerlina Maxwell (Signal Boost), MSNBC, January 28, 2021:

They are not apologizing because they are not sorry

Greene has publicly expressed support (numerous times) for the execution of Nancy Pelosi, she has taunted a teenager, saying the school massacre he survived didn't actually happen, and she has said that she believes Democrats are Satan-worshipping pedophiles who have videotaped themselves skinning infants alive.

As far as I can tell, not one member of her party has said those comments were inaccurate or unprofessional or the deranged ramblings of a severely mentally ill woman who needs to be calmly guided back into the institution. That silent and all-encompassing acceptance of Greene's comments means these unhinged beliefs form the core of the Republican party platform.

Rebecca Traister, (New York Magazine), MSNBC, January 28, 2021:

The thing we have to reckon with, and the Democrats have to reckon with . . . is that this is not a problem that began or is going to end with Marjorie Taylor Greene or even with Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley or Lauren Boebert.

This has been happening . . . the politics of white supremacist resentment and violent misogyny . . . extends decades into the Republican party's past. You could see this building – this exact set of violent antagonism towards democracy itself, towards the United States and its institutions – building during the presidency of Barack Obama. You saw these exact patterns. . . . You could see in the summer of 2016, when you had a New Hampshire lawmaker calling for Hillary Clinton to be taken out on a firing line and shot for treason. He did that three times in public . . . You also saw Trump himself threatening to imprison Hillary Clinton. I mean, absolute violations and antagonism towards the United States' institutions and its electoral practices, building and building.

The Republican party has had a long time to decide what to do with this. With Trump, after a little preformative, window-dressing, 'we-don't-like-him', they accepted him and that open antagonism towards the United States and its electoral processes and towards democracy entered the White House. . . . [I]t's not about the individuals anymore. The party has welcomed them in. It is appointing them to committees. . . . 

McCarthy is not in control of his caucus and I would argue neither is Mitch McConnell . . . [T]hese men are being led by this faction of their party. The party has embraced this.
So how do you treat an entire political party that is working antagonistically, aggressively, and violently against the United States?

Most journalists covering US politics (as opposed to Op-Ed writers) seem incapable of reporting on reality (much like Republicans):

The contempt and harrassment and calls for death continue:

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