Where’s denunciation of violence?
It will be a while before the January 6 Committee resumes its work in September.
Congress has left Capitol Hill for its annual August recess. Out of 261 available workdays, our U.S. senators and representatives generally spend just 145 days in session. (Granted, many of them may be working in their home districts on days off, though that is counterbalanced by campaign and fundraising events.) Their base annual salary is $174,000, plus they get a gold-level Obamacare health plan with 72% of the cost subsidized. Nice work if you can get it.
But there is a downside to doing that job, particularly if you follow your conscience and some people disagree with you. Threats of violence toward Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, as well as toward his family, are disturbing. Because he has criticized Donald Trump and has agreed to serve on the January 6 Committee, Kinzinger – along with his wife and child – has received death threats. The same goes for Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, and for witnesses such as Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified about former president Donald Trump’s actions and inactions on Jan. 6.
Why does violence seem to be the go-to option for many of Trump’s more rabid and unhinged supporters when anyone doesn’t totally back him? The list of people facing death threats when they stand up for the rule of law rather than blindly for ump now includes Attorney General Merrick Garland, members of the FBI including its director Christopher Wray, Judge Bruce Reinhart who signed off on the recent Mar-a-Lago search warrant, and various elections officials.
Adding fuel to the fire are conservative pundits on Fox and elsewhere who toss around terms like “civil war,” “Gestapo tactics,” and “they’re coming for you.” And yet there has been virtually no condemnation of vigilantism and intimidation coming from Trump himself (no surprise there), nor from GOP leadership, nor from major religious leaders.
Unfortunately, one can only take their silence as meaning they condone these violent threats to people and to our democracy.
Bernard Quarrick
Uniontown