Brunswick Beacon, 01.12.23
The Jan. 6 Insurrection was incited by a defeated President who fomented violence to keep power. When the Capitol was cleared of Trump banners, Confederate flags, the Q-Anon shaman and zip-tie guy, 147 Republicans, including David Rouzer and Ted Budd, rewarded the violence by voting to overturn the election. Budd dismissed the violence, saying “It was nothing. It was just patriots standing up.” Of those representatives who did the mob’s bidding, 118 were present and voting two years later. This time, they turned on each other.
On the Insurrection’s second anniversary, a Capitol steps service honoring police officers killed and injured by the violence drew only one Republican. Inside, more violence was averted only because Mike Rogers (R-AL) was physically restrained from attacking Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for rejecting Kevin McCarthy on the 14th ballot. Rogers became infuriated when Gaetz demanded a subcommittee chairmanship in exchange for his vote.
McCarthy needed 15 ballots to become speaker, the most since before the Civil War. It seemed fitting, because that was the last time America was this divided.
Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy called the fiasco “a televised hijacking.” Co-host Brian Kilmeade called the “Never Kevins” “insurrectionists.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called them “terrorists” and “hostage-takers.” Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said: “we cannot let the terrorists win.”
But they did. Gaetz said McCarthy “sold shares in himself for more than a decade.” McCarthy proved the point with even more humiliating concessions. He ultimately agreed that a single member could force a vote to remove him and agreed to use the debt ceiling to shut down the government. Gaetz flipped, he said, because “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.”
Disgusted, Doocy complained: “This is not democracy. They are intent, simply, on blowing up the party, and this Congress. They do not care.”
Insurrection-enabling Republicans have no one to blame but themselves.
Vince Amoroso
Sunset Beach