Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob of Donald Trump loyalists carried out an insurrection against the Capitol, is etched in the minds of Americans. No doubt historians will memorialize that terrible, ugly day as a nadir in American democracy, a moment of shame that indelibly scarred the nation.
It won’t be remembered by historians as a day of “legitimate political discourse.”
And yet, the Republican Party has set out to brand Jan. 6 as exactly that. The insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol with the aim of nullifying the free and fair election of an American president were simply exercising “legitimate political discourse,” the Republican National Committee decided at its winter meeting last week in Salt Lake City.
The party also overwhelmingly voted to censure two of its own, Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, for their participation in the ongoing House select committee investigation into the insurrection and the events leading up to it.
Later, party leaders tried to walk back the language, saying they didn’t mean to apply it to anyone who was violent. But the official declaration the party released contains no such clarification.
Perhaps the GOP looks at the declaration and censures as acts of self-preservation, a way to keep the legions of Trump supporters well-ensconced inside the Republican Party tent and energized to vote. Perhaps Republican leaders bafflingly believe that insurrectionists and their inciters were simply expressing themselves politically. It doesn’t matter.
These decisions amount to a self-inflicted wound that cuts deep, and threatens to permanently taint the party as an entity willing to distort democracy to suit its own aims.
That’s a perilous course for the GOP, and more responsible-minded leaders within the party need to quickly chart a new path.
It’s impossible to rationalize as “political discourse” an afternoon of mayhem in which nine people died and more than 150 officers were injured. During this “discourse,” members of Congress hid behind whatever cover they could find as they feared for their lives. Vice President Mike Pence had to be evacuated, along with many lawmakers.
The images of officers trampled and pummeled by rioters, or being attacked with bear spray, remain fresh in our minds. More than 725 people were arrested in connection with the assault, and more than 150 have pleaded guilty for their role in what happened.
Also not forgotten are the fabrications Trump ginned up to incite the mob, the audacious lie that he was the election’s victor. “We will stop the steal,” Trump shouted to his followers before the mob made its way to the Capitol. Less than two weeks later, one of party’s top Republicans, Sen. Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, stood on the Senate floor and blamed Trump for urging the attack. “The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
Exactly.
Now, however, Republicans seem to have been struck by a collective bout of amnesia. In hindsight, the GOP insists, the mob wasn’t a mob. It was a group of Americans simply expressing themselves.
The party’s motives appear to have a practical side. Kinzinger has said he is not running for reelection. But the censure of Cheney creates justification for the party to go full-bore in backing her main challenger in the upcoming primary, Harriet Hageman, who is endorsed by Trump.
It will be up to Wyoming voters to see through the GOP’s shortsighted stratagems. Long term, however, the GOP stands to pay a stiff price for its detestable overreach. It potentially creates a wedge in the GOP electorate between the dyed-in-the-wool Trump faithful and Republicans — conservative and moderate — who correctly viewed the insurrection as a dangerous broadside to democracy. It also unnecessarily distracts the party from focusing attention and resources on what should be the real aim — President Joe Biden and Democrats in the midterm elections.
If the GOP wants to get on the right side of history, declaring Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse” is the wrong way to do it.
What’s the right way? Treat the events of Jan. 6 for what they were — deplorable, illegal and antithetical to the ideals of democracy. Instead of censuring Kinzinger and Cheney for serving on the House committee investigating Jan. 6, GOP leaders should be commending them.
That would be an exercise in legitimate politics. What the Republican Party did last week wasn’t just self-serving. It was self-destructive.
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