An Alabama man pleaded guilty on Friday to bringing a truck with five loaded firearms and 11 molotov cocktails to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The Washington Post Editorial Board wants a few words with an increasingly radicalized Republican Party:
The past week has brought yet more alarming evidence of the extremism that has come to define the House Republican caucus.
On one hand, a growing list of Republicans seeks to punish 13 of their colleagues who broke ranks to vote for an infrastructure bill — a bill that a bipartisan group of senators negotiated and that 19 Republican senators joined all 50 Democrats in voting to pass in August. The House Republicans’ chief objection to a bill that addresses long-needed investments in roads, rails and ports is that it gave a win to President Biden. Punishments against GOP members who voted for it could include removing them from their committees.
On the other hand, Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) has encountered no such pushback after posting an anime video that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and attacking the president. Mr. Gosar claimed, absurdly, that the video symbolized the debate over immigration policy. This is not a joke: A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll shows that 30 percent ofRepublicans believe that violence may be necessary to solve the nation’s problems. One of the 13 Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill, Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), has described getting threatening messages since his vote. (Mr. Upton’s vote was a service to his constituents: His home state has some of the nation’s worst roads.)
The New York Times cites the young man at an Idaho rally last month who stepped to a microphone and asked, “When do we get to use the guns?”
The conservative audience applauded.
“How many elections are they [Democrats] going to steal before we kill these people?” he continued. A Republican state representative called it a “fair” question.
The Times, generally reluctant to call Republican extremists Republican extremists, has seen enough violence and violent threats this year to state it bluntly: the Republican Party is mainstreaming menace as a political tool:
From congressional offices to community meeting rooms, threats of violence are becoming commonplace among a significant segment of the Republican Party. Ten months after rioters attacked the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, and after four years of a president who often spoke in violent terms about his adversaries, right-wing Republicans are talking more openly and frequently about the use of force as justifiable in opposition to those who dislodged him from power.
In Washington, where decorum and civility are still given lip service, violent or threatening language still remains uncommon, if not unheard-of, among lawmakers who spend a great deal of time in the same building. But among the most fervent conservatives, who play an outsize role in primary contests and provide the party with its activist energy, the belief that the country is at a crossroads that could require armed confrontation is no longer limited to the fringe.
Historical perspectives offered on American political violence, yadda-yadda. But let’s be clear, on Jan. 6 this year, Republican/MAGA reactionaries, some outfitted in combat gear, broke into and ransacked the U.S. Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence” while trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election by force of mob.
Polling indicates that 30 percent of Republicans, and 40 percent of people who “most trust” far-right news sources, believe that “true patriots” may have to resort to violence to “save” the country — a statement that gets far less support among Democrats and independents.
Such views, routinely expressed in warlike or revolutionary terms, are often intertwined with white racial resentments and evangelical Christian religious fervor — two potent sources of fuel for the G.O.P. during the Trump era — as the most animated Republican voters increasingly see themselves as participants in a struggle, if not a kind of holy war, to preserve their idea of American culture and their place in society.
The same Republican lapdogs who kowtowed to Donald Trump’s bullying rhetoric and lavished praise during Cabinet meetings have been silent.
Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the left-leaning group New America who has studied political violence, said there was a connection between such actions and the growing view among Americans that politics is a struggle between enemies.
“When you start dehumanizing political opponents, or really anybody, it becomes a lot easier to inflict violence on them,” Dr. Drutman said.
“I have a hard time seeing how we have a peaceful 2024 election after everything that’s happened now,” he added. “I don’t see the rhetoric turning down, I don’t see the conflicts going away. I really do think it’s hard to see how it gets better before it gets worse.”
Ask school board members and elections officials from across the country who have faced screams and insults, angry protests outside their homes and threats of violence:
“This might be a good time to put a f‑‑‑‑‑‑ pistol in your f‑‑‑‑‑‑ mouth and pull the trigger,” the man shouted at Vermont officials in a thick New England accent last December. “Your days are f‑‑‑‑‑‑ numbered.”
Reuters documents that people “radicalized to the point of terrorizing public officials” have made “nearly 800 intimidating messages to election officials in 12 states, including more than 100 that could warrant prosecution, according to legal experts.” Threats against members of Congress have jumped by 107 percent this year.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) received this message from a caller:
“They ought to try you for treason,” one caller screamed in a lengthy, graphic voice mail message. “I hope your family dies in front of you. I pray to God that if you’ve got any children, they die in your face.”
Republicans spent decades citing 1960s radicals such as the Weather Underground as examples of left-wing violence. More recently, they condemn window-breaking Antifa vandals and Black Lives Matter-adjacent protesters who vandalize property.
On the MAGA Underground threatening violence against neighbors and government officials they are all but silent.