After the Republican National Committee’s actions Friday, its next step might be to propose that the Grand Old Party consider changing its middle name. The Grand Sedition Party might be a better statement of the brand represented by the RNC’s vote to censure Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The RNC chastised the pair for serving on the House Jan. 6 committee and declared that the Capitol siege that day was “legitimate political discourse.”
The RNC has lost its commitment to peaceful, rational disagreement and to the Constitution — and apparently its mind.
Fact: The Jan. 6 mob killed at least one police officer and wounded 140 others and screamed “Hang Mike Pence” — all while camera phones recorded video. To say that this was “legitimate” activity is like branding Kim Jong Un a pacifist. The RNC, the organization whose job it is to represent and speak for and as the party, has lost its commitment to peaceful, rational disagreement and to the Constitution — and apparently its mind.
No matter what your political leanings are, this country needs two (at least) political parties whose institutional apparatuses and leaders are devoted to truth, substantive policy disagreements, civility and the rule of law. Unfortunately, the official position of the Republican Party now is to support Jan. 6.
And notably, there was no reason for the GOP to go this route, politically or otherwise.
The U.S. has frequently shown its bent for the kind of right-of-center policies the RNC should and could be championing. Principled Republicans such as Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan are popular while remaining loyal to traditional conservative policies and pushing back against Trumpism. Unfortunately, the RNC has now cast its lot with its narcissist former president.
The good news is that not every conservative subscribes to the RNC’s self-debasing statement last week. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., told an interviewer Monday that he doesn’t “know any American that regards [what happened on Jan. 6] as legitimate political discourse,” adding, “I certainly haven’t encountered any of them here in the state of Indiana.”
The conservative magazine National Review wrote that what the RNC said was “both morally reprehensible and politically self-destructive.”
Even former Vice President Mike Pence, who remained steadfastly loyal to President Donald Trump throughout their White House tenure, separated himself from his former boss’s statements about Jan. 6. Pence labeled as “un-American” Trump’s view that a vice president could overturn an election by rejecting states’ certified Electoral College votes.
History gives us reason to be alarmed by this extremist shift. Just look at what Southern Democrats did after the 1860 election of President Abraham Lincoln. Rather than accept defeat at the ballot box, they abandoned their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution and the electoral process. They claimed, in terms that resonate today, that their way of life was under attack. They precipitated a conflict costing more American lives than any other war in our history.
And following their battleground defeat four years later, they soon created the Jim Crow South as a vehicle to resurrect their power.
Too many in today’s GOP are, even now, engaged in the same effort to manufacture what historian David Blight labels a “dreamlike story.”
Too many in today’s GOP are, even now, engaged in the same effort to manufacture what historian David Blight labels a “dreamlike story.” These GOP leaders recognize that demographics and democracy are running against them, so they are hoping voter suppression and election sabotage may be enough to ensure power, even if that means the ruling party represents the minority of Americans. As we saw in 2020, the Trump Republican convention shed any pretense of creating a platform, symbolizing the party’s renunciation of substantive policy.
That course damages Democrats and independents as well as Republicans. Strong countries thrive when there is robust debate about what legislative programs and executive actions are best for the people.
Thus, and to echo what others have said repeatedly over the last few years, voters must assert their power and preserve this 245-year-old experiment in self-government. Following Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s blockade of the Freedom to Vote and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement acts, voting rights activists are working even harder to defeat Republican legislatures’ attempts to discourage citizens from going to the polls. Strong Democratic officeholders are also applying countermeasures. In the face of Republican gerrymandering — with support from a 5-4 conservative Supreme Court majority, as we saw Monday — Democrats in state government appear to be fighting fire with fire.
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Explaining what it meant for a political party to embrace sedition and turn its back on the Constitution, Lincoln said secessionists threatened to “destroy the only democracy in existence and prove for all time — to both future Americans and the world — that a government of the people could not survive."
Lincoln’s warning speaks to our times. In 2020, Americans paid heed and voted in unprecedented numbers. This election year and beyond, may we do the same so that our founders’ vision endures.