Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) made clear this week that the issues represented by the storming of the Capitol last January by supporters of then-President Donald Trump don’t end with that initial incident. Rather, at issue is also the fact that numerous Republican leaders have opted to reject the truth of the documented security of the 2020 presidential election, fostering animosity in the Republican ranks towards the very principles of determining facts. These delusions connect directly to the violence of January 6 — and help allow for something just like it to happen again. On Thursday, which was the first anniversary of the Capitol riot, Kinzinger commented as follows:
‘Every Republican politician up and down ballot should today be asked repeatedly until they answer directly: did Joe Biden win, and were the [insurrectionists] wrong or right?’
You’d think that these would be simple asks — but the behavior of numerous Republicans in power has proven such to not be the case. Donald Trump himself has repeatedly sought to defend the individuals who participated in the storming of the Capitol, characterizing their actions as a logical consequence of the imaginary election fraud that he claims cost him a victory. On the day of the riot itself, he proclaimed on his long since banned Twitter account that “these are the things and events that happen” when an election is stolen (which it wasn’t).
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, etc aren't fringe. They represent the new Republican mainstream, where loyalty to Trump is more important than loyalty to country and preserving power matters more than preserving democracy.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 6, 2022
Republicans also continue to push their claims of election thievery, although they’re getting, let’s just say… more ridiculous. In a recent tweet, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) characterized the following (which was a quote) as “[how] to steal an election”: “Seeding an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results.” It uses scary-sounding words for simple processes, but what that describes is… wait for it… voting. “Targeting and convincing potential voters to complete [ballots] in a legally valid way” is how elections work. These people are ridiculous. As the evidence against their nonsensical election fraud claims has kept piling up, they’ve moved the goalposts, and then moved them some more — to now encompass the basic processes of an election, apparently.
Biden: Trump "and his supporters have never been able to explain how they accept as accurate the other election results that took place on November 3rd … Elections in which they closed the gap in the House. They challenged none of that … Somehow, those results are accurate."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 6, 2022
