The GOP is declaring war on democracy. Josh Hawley is telling everyone their battle plans.
Missouri’s junior Republican senator wants Republicans use right-wing laws — like abortion bans — to terrorize political opponents and accumulate more power. Hawley’s vision involves a nation where liberals flee from states run by Republicans.
The overturning of Roe v Wade was, to me, the beginning of a firestorm. Even though I do not really believe in abortions, I feel that it is a woman’s right to decide for herself if she wants to go through with it. The Supreme Court is somewhat right when they said that there was nothing in the Constitution that allowed abortions.
When someone does not have supportive arguments for their ideals and plans, that leads to them implementing their very ideals and plans through force. This is exactly what I think the January 6th insurrection was all about. To me it’s down to just plain ignorance. As Issac Asimov said, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov famously called violence “the last refuge of the incompetent.” But violence — self-defense excepted — is also the last refuge of the loser, the last gasp of those who have no more words, the tacit confession of those who know, but are loath to admit, that they got nothing’. If you can’t win the argument, win the fight. A mantra for thugs, bullies, and many Republicans. This is now normal politics. Republicans no longer talk policy or ideas; they only threaten to take away your rights or punish you if you do not bow down to their way.
Below is Judge Luttig’s statement to the Jan. 6th committee. It is Judge Luttig’s view on our war on democracy.
Statement of J. Michael Luttig before The United States House Select Committee on the January 6, 2021,
Attack on the United States Capitol Washington, D.C
June 16, 2022
Honorable Members of the House Select Committee —
A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge.
America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other — over our democracy.
January 6 was but the next, foreseeable battle in a war that had been raging in America for years, though that day was the most consequential battle of that war even to date. In fact, January 6 was a separate war unto itself, a war for America’s democracy, a war irresponsibly instigated and prosecuted by the former president, his political party allies, and his supporters. Both wars are raging to this day.
This was an opinion piece about having no monopoly on truth. I saw it in the newspaper and agreed with it.
“I’d like to be as sure of anything as many people in this country today seem to be about everything. The problem is that their beliefs and opinions are based on propaganda. Extreme radical wings of their political party indoctrinate them by the news and social media. Not on facts.
To the people who say Red Flag laws cannot work, they are highly mistaken. Many states already have them and in most cases they are working great. Take Florida for example.
A violent Jan. 6th insurrection engulfed the U.S. Capitol just seventeen months ago. The January 6th committee is about to have public hearings on the subject next week. Many Republican leaders are already trying to rewrite the history of that day and what led up to it. This is an effort to deflect from why it happened. Ben Jealous wrote an op-ed on the Jan. 6th Insurrection a while back that I feel is the real reason many Republicans want to re-write history.
I need to give Nicholas Confessore and Karen Yourish credit for some of this information.
At the extremes of American life there is replacement theory. It is the notion that Western elites, sometimes manipulated by Jews, want to “replace” and disempower white Americans. The idea of replacement theory is now going mainstream.
Replacement theory, once on hidden message boards and white nationalist sites, has gone mainstream. In has become a potent force in conservative media and politics. The theory has been borrowed and remixed to attract audiences, retweets, and donations.
Mainly, they have become commonplace in the Republican Party. Spoken aloud at congressional hearings, echoed in Republican campaign advertisements, and used by a growing array of right-wing candidates and media personalities.