Jan 8, 2021; Washington, DC, USA; Virginia State Police troopers have been manning security positions on the west side of the United States Capitol and the National Mall look out over the National Mall towards the Washington Monument on Jan. 8, 2021. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the flags at the U.S. Capitol to be flown at half-staff following the death of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Officer Brian Sicknick who died after he was injured when President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol. Mandatory Credit: Jack Gruber-USA TODAY NETWORK
Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:58 pm
National security expert Juliette Kayyem warned on election day that baseless allegations of election fraud are a form of incitement.
She puts to bed the long-worn out “lone wolf” excuse while also reassuring that this is also not a . Civil War: One way to look at it is that it is clear the incitement is deeper, more fearless, but it is less clear that formalized groups are joining anti-democratic violent efforts. Those who would act are not ‘lone wolves,’ they are part of a pact, but this isn’t a civil war.”
Kayyem was on Acosta over the weekend, and she made the point above that video that Trump achieved the denial of the peaceful transfer of power. Democrats can’t fix this for Republicans: We discussed Trump’s nurturing of violence as a political strategy. “He won’t change because it is working for him. But if the GOP thinks it can somehow control this, the history of violent movements suggests otherwise. Dems can’t fix this for them.”
Here she made the ignored point that Democrats, minority populations, are the ones who actually have the greater claim to “rigged” and lack of access to ballot boxes.
President Biden has pointed out that Republicans can’t just vaguely say they condemn the violence after the brutally horrific attack on Paul Pelosi. They have to call out the Big Lie that led to it.
There is always the instinct to look at Democrats expecting them to fix things for Republicans. But as I have been writing for years, how? Democrats can’t fix things for Republicans because if they could, they would.
Speaker Pelosi herself said in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN when asked, “How does this stop? How does this not happen again?”
The Speaker responded, “Well, you would think that there would be some level of responsibility. But what – you see what the reaction is on the other side to this, to make a joke of it. And really, that is traumatizing too, but nonetheless, forgetting them. There has to be some healing process. And Democrats and Republicans, you know, Member of Congress, anybody could be a target. And we can’t – there’s no guarantee. But we can – in our democracy, there is one party that is doubting the outcome of the election, feeding that flame and mocking in the violence that happens. That has to stop.”
Pelosi also said we need a strong Republican Party. “A strong Republican Party has done great things for our country. And they should take pride in that instead of yielding to a cult – to a thug, actually, the way I see it, but nonetheless, really to stay with the healing part of it.”
When Democrats have called out the thug tactics of the Republican Party in years past, the media has both sided them, even though only one side egged on armed supporters threatening lawmakers to stop the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and only one side repeatedly took our country to the debt ceiling cliff to terrorize it into bowing to the will of the Republican Party, and only one party remained silent after its leader incited a violent attack on this very country – an attack labeled a domestic terrorism attack – based on the very lie that got Paul Pelosi beaten savagely with a hammer, only one party has mocked victims of the violence its party incited, only one party has raised violence as an acceptable form of politics and only one side refused to concede when it lost the most secure election in history.
Republicans had already cast aspersions on the results of the election days before Election Day.
Election denial is all over social media and right-wing sites today. Republicans are claiming we shouldn’t count the early votes, in which Democrats lead. And yet, they are the people who prevented the counting of early vote ballots. So again, they know they are lying to their base when they cast aspersions on early votes.
For example, this conservative political commentator:
They don’t want people to know that election results take time to tabulate and early votes are counted last in some states like here in Pennsylvania.
This is hardly a partisan take. A Republican-led Senate report warned in 2020 that elected officials and candidates should use “the absolute greatest amount of restraint and caution” before calling into question the validity of an election because to do so can have grave national security implications.
So Republicans were warned about the threat to the United States if they did exactly what their party leader is doing and over half of their candidates are doing.
Of the 597 Republican candidates running for state or federal office, “308 have raised unfounded doubts about the results of the 2020 election.”
There isn’t a “both sides” even in the distant rearview mirror.
One side is cultivating and orchestrating violence against the other, and this can only be fixed by the Republican Party deciding at long last to untangle itself from Putin, Trump, the Saudis, the NRA, foreign influence, and other extremist groups. Republicans choose not to because this is working for them.
And whose fault is that? (Insert a discussion we need to have on the newsletter about late-stage capitalism, oligarchs owning all of the media, and how The People have been largely left behind by legacy news institutions.)
Every time you hear someone — other than minorities and people in urban cities who are actually being targeted and harassed by conservatives and having their votes challenged by Republicans — cast aspersions on the election results today, that person is guilty of potentially inciting violence. When it comes from elected officials, they all know exactly what they are doing.
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