The National Committee of the Republican Party (NCRP) has publicly chastised Republican Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for entering a special commission to investigate last year's Capitol protests against party lines.
The National Committee resolution states that Kinzinger and Cheney are involved in the persecution of ordinary citizens involved in "legitimate political discourse." Around the last three words, fierce disputes unfolded. We are talking about supporters of Donald Trump, who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 elections and went to a protest in downtown Washington on January 6, 2021. Part of the demonstrators then broke into the Capitol, because of which the ceremony of approving the results of the elections that took place there was suspended. The ruling Democratic Party calls the incident an attempted coup and formed a special commission to investigate the events. But Republican leaders, fearing a quarrel with Trump's electorate, refused to participate in the commission's work. Nevertheless, there is no unity in how to assess the events of January 6 in the ranks of the party, which the Democrats are trying to use against the Republicans before the fall congressional elections.
One of the most influential Republicans, the leader of the Senate faction, Mitch McConnell, said that "it is not the job of the NCRP to poke individual party members who do not agree with the majority line." He called the events of January 6 "a violent riot to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after legitimately approved elections." More than a hundred republican functionaries signed a letter condemning the actions of the national committee.
But NCRP chief Ronna McDaniel didn't back down, saying "legitimate political discourse" refers not to the violence at the Capitol but to the protest that preceded it. In her opinion, the actions of the special commission of the Democrats "went far beyond the original goals" and are more "political posturing than justice."
All this is a play on words, which, nevertheless, can determine who the Republican Party will follow next - Trump or his opponents. After all, Kinzinger and Cheney are ardent critics of Trump and even supported the impeachment initiated by the Democrats against him. But the ex-president, despite all the attempts of part of the party elite to break with him, remains the most popular politician among the Republican electorate. And the NKRP made it clear that it stands on the side of the former head of state and his voters. Trump himself said that if he manages to win the presidential election in 2024, he will consider pardoning those convicted in the Capitol riot case.
Notable is the recent conflict on this topic between authoritative Senator Ted Cruz and Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. Cruz called the January 6 rioters "terrorists," for which Carlson, considered one of today's most influential conservative commentators, slammed politics hard on his show. As a result, Cruz himself appeared on the air at Carlson, repeating the apology in a trembling voice, saying that it was "imprudent and stupid" of him to call "thousands of peaceful protesters terrorists."
At first glance, the resolution of the NKRP really looks like a justification of violence as a means of political struggle, which is strange for America, which claims to have democratic traditions. After all, individual protesters that day broke through the police cordon by force, smashed and robbed offices in the Capitol, shouted threats against congressmen.
On the other hand, everything is not so obvious. First, a recent poll by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland showed that one in three Americans really believe that "violence against the authorities can sometimes be justified." For comparison: in the 1990s, only one in ten people thought so. Secondly, the very question of the legitimacy of the 2020 elections is not trifling. Although Democrats and the friendly press label all doubters as conspiracy theorists, according to the Axios-Momentive study, only slightly less than half of Americans (42 percent) today doubt whether Biden's victory was legitimate.
bbabo.Net