Twitter statements from complicit Republican politicians are meaningless
It’s time to disabuse House Republicans of the notion that their cheap talking points and half-hearted Tweets absolve them of complicity in President Trump’s racially divisive presidency. House Republicans voted for, endorsed, and continue to support Trump’s dangerous agenda. They forfeited any ability to speak with moral clarity a long time ago, and they will not be able to separate themselves from this president. In fact, many House Republicans have acted to empower and pave the way for Trump’s now infamous press conference at Trump Tower.
“House Republicans won’t be able to escape President Trump’s disgusting, racist comments just as they cannot run away from their own words,” said DCCC Spokesman Tyler Law. “Their hollow Tweets have been an insultingly weak response to Trump’s equivocating on white supremacists and Nazis, but it’s sadly not surprising.”
Here’s a sampling of the House Republicans that helped pave the way for President Trump’s racially charged Presidency…
Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48) spoke at a rally featuring white nationalists and Nazis. Similar to Charlottesville, opposition protestors and members of the media were attacked by them. After all this, Rohrabacher spoke at a second rally organized by the same group.
Darrell Issa (CA-49) spoke at an event sponsored by FAIR, which is labeled a hate group by the SPLC and has extensive ties to white nationalism.
Duncan Hunter (CA-50) criticized Judge Curiel, the Latino judge that oversaw the Trump University case, for holding membership in a state Hispanic bar association, saying that it was just like belonging to a white supremacist group.
Mike Coffman (CO-06) spoke to a leading anti-Muslim hate group and said this about President Obama: “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”
Ron DeSantis (FL-06) said Donald Trump’s critics would have criticized him no matter what.
Brian Mast (FL-18) called the press the “greatest saboteur” of the 2016 election.
Rod Blum (IA-01) said “Let’s face it – sitting next to some white kid isn’t going to help the minority kid in school. There exists very little evidence that racial mixing improves student achievement”.
Steve King (IA-04) said “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
Mike Bost (IL-12) describing his opposition to holding Town Hall events, said, “You know the cleansing that the Orientals used to do where you’d put one person out in front and 900 people yell at them? That’s not what we need.”
Kevin Yoder (KS-03) sent staff to an “Olathe Lives Matter!” event.
Tim Walberg (MI-07) said he didn’t know if President Obama was born in America.
Jason Lewis (MN-02) “wrote that President Abraham Lincoln ‘exploited the issue’ of slavery, adding the Civil War, or what Lewis called the ‘War Between the States,’ had ‘more to do with secession’ than slavery.”
Greg Gianforte (MT-AL) donated to a white nationalist and politicians affiliated to the Oath Keeper movement.
Robert Pittenger (NC-09) said “they hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not.”
Kevin Cramer (ND-AL) said Sean Spicer’s analogy between Adolf Hitler and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was “not without some validity.”
Lee Zeldin (NY-01) blamed “many sides” and “multiple groups” for the violence in Charlottesville last weekend, and yesterday issued a statement defending President Trump’s “both sides” remarks at his Trump tower press conference.
John Faso (NY-19) spoke in 2016 to the Oath Keepers, a “radical antigovernment organization” and part of the far-right militia movement. Lee Zeldin met with the Oath Keepers in 2014 and 2015.
Claudia Tenney’s (NY-22) offensive anti-Italian ethnic slurs about her opponent’s family were called “disgusting, not to mention highly insulting” by the Utica Observer-Dispatch. Breitbart, described by its former executive chair Steve Bannon as “the platform for the alt-right,” recently published a fawning profile of Tenney under the headline “EXCLUSIVE – A STAR IS BORN”. And just this morning, Tenney agreed with Trump that “there is fault to be found on both sides.”
Tom Reed (NY-23) said “From my perspective alt-right is a label that is out to try to describe what I believe is an extremist movement on both the right and left. There’s an alt-right movement to the left as you’ve seen across the country.”
Scott Taylor (VA-02) said there was “premeditated lawlessness on both sides.”
Tom Garrett (VA-05) met with Jason Kessler, a white nationalist blogger and organizer of the Charlottesville white supremacy rally.
Dave Brat (VA-07) complained that his constituents booing him at a town hall “gave him a taste” of the violence in Charlottesville.
Barbara Comstock (VA-10) said immigrants should be tracked “like FedEx packages.”