The right-wing outrage over the election did not die out at the Capitol on Jan. 6, nor have the conspiracies that fueled it. They have simply been joined by fresh conspiracies, like the baseless claim that antifa orchestrated the violence, as well as a surge of indignation that Trump was being punished after the election was allegedly stolen from him.
Among the clearest targets for that ire: the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. Serious threats materialized almost instantaneously after Wednesday’s vote, according to some of the GOP lawmakers. Meijer told NBC News on Thursday that the threats flooded in immediately, and that his GOP colleagues have requested armed escorts, a protection typically granted only to members of party leadership.
“Many of us are altering our routines, working to get body armor, which is a reimbursable purchase that we can make," Meijer said. "It's sad we have to get to that point. But our expectation is that someone may try to kill us."
Nine years ago, terrorists attacked U.S. diplomats and contractors in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans died, and Republicans spent years investigating why. Those investigations found no wrongdoing by President Barack Obama or then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but they succeeded in painting Clinton as soft on terrorism, thereby damaging her 2016 presidential campaign. Now the same Republicans who decried Benghazi are downplaying President Donald Trump’s culpability—and their own—in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Republican frenzy over Benghazi spanned two presidential elections. In October 2012, Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, opened hearings on the Obama administration’s “security failures.” In a letter issued two weeks before that year’s presidential election, Issa and a fellow Republican lawmaker accused the administration of “endangering American lives” by ignoring the “escalating violence” that had preceded the attack. The letter also criticized Obama’s team for blaming the attack, erroneously, on unrelated protests over an anti-Muslim video.
After the election, Republicans launched more investigations. They created a House committee on Benghazi, which—as Issa and others would later admit—aimed to tarnish Clinton and cripple her candidacy. In hours of public interrogation and in the committee’s final report, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said Clinton had neglected warning signs before the attack and had played up the protests to avoid acknowledging the terrorism. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Sen. Marco Rubio alleged that Clinton had “turned her back on the fallen heroes in Benghazi.” Sen. Ted Cruz, taking Clinton’s words out of context, accused her of shrugging off “the death of Americans at Benghazi.”
Five years later, at least five people are dead after last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol. That’s more than the number of Americans killed in Benghazi. But this attack wasn’t inspired by radical Islamists. It was inspired by Republicans. For weeks leading up to the storming of the Capitol, Cruz told his followers that Democrats were trying to “steal the election.” Issa pledged to challenge the “amazing discrepancies” in state ballots counts, and Jordan constantly promoted allegations of fraud. The night before the attack, Fox News host Lou Dobbs asked Jordan, “Are you absolutely convinced … that there was fraud and an effort to steal this election on the part of the radical Dems?” The congressman replied, “Certainly fraud. Over 200 affidavits and declarations.”
Even after the Jan. 6 assault, these lawmakers continued to spread the propaganda that had provoked it. Rubio said state officials had “mutilated election integrity laws to help the Democrats.” Cruz noted that millions of Americans “believe the election was rigged,” and he scoffed that Democrats who “dismiss those claims” did so because “they like the outcome.” When an interviewer pointed out that other lawmakers had found no evidence of significant fraud, Cruz retorted, “Voter fraud has been a persistent problem in our elections. We have seen it over and over again.” And when colleagues challenged Jordan to concede that “the election was not rigged or stolen,” he ducked, saying only that the results had been officially certified.
During the Benghazi hearings, Republicans lambasted Clinton for suggesting, even tangentially, that understandable grievances might have played a role in the Libyan attack. Now those Republicans are suggesting that legitimate grievances were behind the attack on Congress.
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The response of these Trump apologists to last week’s insurrection makes a mockery of their hysteria over Benghazi. They’re doing exactly what they previously denounced: changing their story, rationalizing the motives behind the attack, and excusing the demagogue who inspired it. After four years of inquisitions into the deaths of four Americans in Libya, they’re accusing Democrats, in Issa’s words, of “overplaying a lot of things, including the death of these people on Capitol Hill.”
Republicans stand firmly against terrorism, it seems, until the terrorists are Republicans.
There's not much meaning to "Republican" any more. Two very different wings that should not be sharing the same name: Fascists and regular conservatives. — Baden
but I don't think the distinction between the two types is lunatic and normal. — Hanover
I wouldn't quite put it that way. But there's little to distinguish Trump Republicanism from neo-fascist European movements like the National Front except maybe the latter are, if anything, a bit more subtle with their tactics. Same overall playbook. — Baden
He served in the navy, actually. His presumable first lawyer started with one pitch:The more important question is whether the horn hat man is the messiah. — Hanover
Attorney Al Watkins said in a statement that his client, Jacob A. Chansley, the Arizona man whose furry headdress and painted face went viral during the siege, was acting on the invitation of President Donald Trump when he and others forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and halted Congress’ debate on Electoral College votes.
“He took seriously the countless messages of President Trump. He believed in President Trump. Like tens of millions of other Americans, Chansley felt — for the first time in his life — as though his voice was being heard,” Watkins said.
Defense attorney Albert Watkins told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday that clemency would be the only “honorable” thing after the president’s rhetoric whipped his supporters into a frenzy that sparked last week’s bloody Capitol riot. Trump, he added, “has an obligation” to dish out pardons.
Watkins said Chansley — also known as Jake Angeli and the QAnon shaman — hung “on every word” of the president and felt “very, very, very solidly in sync” with him. It was “like his voice was for the first time being heard,” the lawyer added.
Chansley, 33, of Phoenix, “loved” Trump and “felt like he was answering the call of our president,” Watkins said. He was in Washington “at the invitation of our president, who was going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with him,”
I'm sure you can name a decent and reasonable Republican, but I cannot. Can you help me out?* — tim wood
Eisenhower. gave some names and one interestingly is Liz Cheney, one of the 10, even if she is the daughter of Darth Vader.I'm sure you can name a decent and reasonable Republican, but I cannot. Can you help me out? — tim wood
Actually many see Gingrich as the person who ignited the hyper-partisan combative rhetoric. This of course was during the Clinton years, where on the domestic side Clinton was going from scandal to scandal and the Republican using every bit to sling mud on the Clintons making it a constant barrage toward the Clintons. It worked. The real hatred of the Clinton's was sown back then, starting with Whitewater and so on.He said the rot really set in with Newt Gingrich who had a strong 'take no prisoners' animus towards any opposition. The Tea Party fundamentalists were also a major part in it. (Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and Mike Pompeo were all associated with Tea Party fundamentalism.) — Wayfarer
Idiocracy is a terrible movie — StreetlightX
What has been stupid is the way elections are fought in the US, that's the start of the stupidity. Politicians really have made this so. — ssu
So I guess the answer is to have free education up to the university level, where those academic graduates finally earn more than their working class counterparts when they reach their 40's. — ssu
Governor of Massachusetts. And father of the ACA (in Massachusetts). But while as an enemy of your enemy, pretty good, as your friend? There have been a number of T-ball issues over the years he could have hit out of the park, but instead bunted or whiffed on.Romney is an obvious choice, — Wayfarer
Sure, but dead now fifty-two years! And arguably his Republicanism a fiction of convenience. More a much tougher and smarter man than almost everyone - who should certainly have known better - took him for.Eisenhower. — ssu
There have been a number of T-ball issues over the years he could have hit out of the park, but instead bunted or whiffed on. — tim wood
I'm sure you can name a decent and reasonable Republican, but I cannot — tim wood
Republicans are totalitarian populists, or because they fear the mob are acting as totalitarian populists — ssu
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