Month: January 2021

GOP Attorneys General Encouraged Protesters to ‘Fight’

Buck Banks

“At 1 p.m. we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal. We’re hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections.”

— The day before a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, an arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association sent out robocalls urging supporters to come to D.C. to “fight” Congress over President Trump’s baseless election fraud claims, the Washington Post reports.

Clinton: This Was ‘Tragically Predictable’

Buck Banks

“Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol was the tragically predictable result of white-supremacist grievances fueled by President Trump. But his departure from office, whether immediately or on Jan. 20, will not solve the deeper problems exposed by this episode. What happened is cause for grief and outrage. It should not be cause for shock. What were too often passed off as the rantings of an unfortunate but temporary figure in public life are, in reality, part of something much bigger. That is the challenge that confronts us all.”

— Hillary Clinton, writing in the Washington Post

Three-Quarters of American Voters Say Democracy Is Under Threat

Buck Banks

74%

A new Quinnipiac poll finds that 74% of voters say democracy in the United States is under threat, while just 21% of voters say that democracy in the United States is alive and well.A majority of voters, 56%, say they hold President Trump responsible for the storming of the U.S. Capitol, while 42% say they do not hold him responsible. A slight majority, 52% to 45%, say President Trump should be removed from office.

300 Historians, Scholars Call for Trump’s Impeachment/Removal

Buck Banks

300

More than 300 historians and constitutional scholars have signed an open letter calling for the impeachment and removal of President Trump, saying his continuation in office after encouraging supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol posed “a clear and present danger to American democracy and the national security of the United States,” the New York Times reports.

Trumpism to Join Other Famous ‘Lost Causes’

Buck Banks

“One hundred and fifty years after the emergence of the Confederate Lost Cause ideology, a new Lost Cause invaded the U.S. Capitol with the incitement of the president of the United States. Waving American, Confederate, Gadsden and, especially, Trump flags, Donald Trump’s loyalists desecrated the greatest symbolic edifice of America. … Trumpism has already become a lethal Lost Cause. It does not quite have martyrs and a cult of the fallen in which to root its hopes and dreams. But it does have a self-destructive cult leader about to leave power in a defeat that has been transformed into a narrative of betrayal, resistance and a promise of political revitalization.”

— David Blight