When the right-wing Supreme Court justices became targets for non-violent protest, Democrats in Congress and the White House supported increased security.
When a right-wing Republican (I know, redundant) attacks Paul Pelosi in hopes of reaching his wife, Republicans deny it. Lying snake Marjorie Taylor Greene claims it’s Paul Pelosi’s own fault. They pretend the attacker’s right-wing online presence was a false flag. Or that a violent man looking for Nancy Pelosi isn’t suspicious or alarming. As LGM says, they’ll do nothing to prevent further attacks by their militant supporters, they’ll just wring their hands a lot about how they totes should not be blamed for violent rhetoric or suggesting we deport liberals. Or for Trump supporters shooting at Biden supporters on the grounds they’re groomers.
This is not new. I’ve written elsewhere about right-wing terrorism and I don’t think anything I’ve written freaks the right out more. Even when I’m careful to put it in the context of America’s overall history of terrorism — left-wing violence, labor violence (“the propaganda of the deed” as it used to be known), anti-labor violence — I still got shrieking letters about how no, right-wing extremism is not a thing. But it is. And at this specific point in history we don’t have a problem of political violence, we have a problem with Republican right-wing violence.
Reporter Brynn Tannehill blames it on “the implicit assumption by Republican leaders that violence will come for their opponents, and not for them.” She thinks they’re wrong: having covered Iraq during our occupation, Tannehill concludes that inevitably the majority the GOP dreams of oppressing will start to fight back. And once the genie is out of the bottle, an insurgency will be very hard to stop and political stability unobtainable.
There are a number of pundits not inside the Republican tent who still deny it. It’s uncomfortable for centrists who believe both parties are equally wrong to admit that Republicans are much, much wronger. So we get arguments that just by saying “only Democrats support democracy” the Dems are rejecting democracy because they’re saying voting Republican is not an option if we want democracy to survive. Why can’t they compromise?
Because Republicans aren’t interested in compromise. They haven’t been interested in it for years. And they do want to end democracy, in favor of a banana republic where they can do what they damn well please to the rest of us. Or so they imagine.
Fingers crossed for a good outcome tomorrow. And if you haven’t voted yet, please do.
Fraser Sherman's Blog 