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Napoleon Bonaparte famously said that “In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”
Whether it’s a handicap or not is up for debate, but stupidity among politicians is as common as Big Macs at McDonald’s.
Pair that stupidity with increasing calls for violence, and we have crossed into very dangerous territory.
The newest entrant into the competition for dumbest politician of the year is GOP Rep. Paul Gosar, who represents Arizona’s 4th congressional district.
Most people know that threatening the president of the United States, in any way, can land them in hot water with the law.
Gosar isn’t one of them.
The congressman posted a photoshopped anime video to his Twitter and Instagram accounts that show him apparently killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and then flying to attack President Biden with two swords.
The outcry was predictable for anyone with half a brain.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has already called for ethics and criminal investigations into Gosar. A separate group of House Democrats have moved to censure him.
The congressman and his camp first responded with variations of “It’s just a cartoon. Relax.”
Maybe he can relax, but imagine what would happen to average Americans who posted a video of themselves killing a coworker and attacking the U.S. president.
We don’t have to imagine. Comedian Kathy Griffin lost her career when she posed with a mock-severed head of President Trump. Were conservatives wrong to be outraged? Should people have relaxed because Trump’s bloodied head was just a Halloween mask?
The Gosar folks then tried to explain away the video with a more intellectual approach, calling it a “symbolic cartoon.”
Giving it a fancier name does not make it any less unacceptable.
The Arizona Republican has a long history of proving Napoleon right. He promoted the “Stop the Steal” movement, called the January 6 rioters “peaceful patriots,” and suggested the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that turned deadly in 2017 “could have been created by the left.”
Trump Doesn’t Want Gosar To Get All the Headlines
Just when I thought Gosar had sown up the dumb politician of the week award (if not the year), his boss in Mar-a-Lago jumped forcefully into the competition.
Former President Trump, in a taped interview for ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl’s upcoming book, defended the 1/6 rioters, even when Karl brought up their chants to “hang” former Vice President Mike Pence.
When Karl asked Trump if he had worried about Pence’s safety, Trump insisted that he had heard Pence “was in good shape.” But then Karl pressed him further:
Karl: "They were saying ‘Hang Mike Pence.'"
Trump: "Because it's common sense, Jon. It's common sense that you're supposed to protect. How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right? — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that?”
To be clear, that’s the former U.S. president saying it’s “common sense” for rioters at the Capitol to chant “Hang Mike Pence.”
Remember, these rioters had already resorted to violence and reportedly “came perilously close” to Pence, less than 100 feet from where he ran to hide.
How Are Republicans Reacting?
If you’re looking for Republicans who are loudly condemning the Gosar/Trump behavior, all you will hear is crickets, other than from Rep. Liz Cheney and another select few.
The New York Times reacted to that silence with an alarmist article titled “Menace Enters the Republican Mainstream,” that warns of a “dark shift in American politics.”
The article does make a series of valid points, highlighting the surge in violent threats against lawmakers, citing examples of calls for violent action by some in the Trump base, and pointing out how a fair number of Republicans are questioning the very legitimacy of the American political system.
The latter is especially ironic. How can conservatives who like to trumpet the U.S. as the greatest country in the world then attack the very system that made it great?
But the article is also disingenuous. It exaggerates by claiming the violent rhetoric is “mainstream” in the GOP, while mostly dismissing its presence on the left.
It cites a PRRI survey that asked people if they agreed with this statement: “True American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
Among Republicans, 30% agreed, a number that is far from making “menace” mainstream. And, while Republicans led the way among those agreeing, 17% of independents did, along with 11% of Democrats.
Of course, any support for violence is unacceptable. As Timothy McVeigh tragically proved, even one domestic terrorist can cause tremendous pain and devastation.
What About the Left?
The difference, according to the Times and another article in the Associated Press, is that Democrats tend to condemn their own when they become instruments of violence or violent rhetoric.
Nonsense. Or as President Biden might say, that’s a bunch of malarkey.
First, the mainstream media tends to overplay negative stories about Republicans, and underplay ones about Democrats.
Second, even if Democrats might be slightly more inclined to condemn this kind of bad behavior among their own, they leave much to be desired.
Few top Democrats emphatically criticized the rioting that broke out in many U.S. cities after George Floyd’s killing in May, 2020. Some even argued that the media shouldn’t use the word “riot” to describe the violence. Of course, they have had no problem using that word to describe the attack on the Capitol.
And not a single House Democrat could vote to censure Rep. Maxine Waters for language interpreted by many as a call for violence. In April, 2021, she said Black Lives Matter protesters would need to “get more confrontational” if Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was acquitted of murdering Floyd.
Hillary Clinton, Sen. Corey Booker, and former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder have all used overly aggressive rhetoric that arguably encourages violence against Republicans.
Various liberals even encouraged supporters to harass members of the Trump administration in their private lives. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” Waters said in 2018.
Minimizing Violence Must Stop
The hypocrisy on both sides would be laughable, were it not for the potentially serious consequences.
It’s time for the right to step up and condemn Gosar and Trump. No matter how polarized the country is, they too should face consequences. If a comedian did, shouldn’t our leaders?
Kathy Griffin apologized. Will Gosar and Trump?
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Cover photo: Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., speaks on the floor of the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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