December 14, 2020 02:29 PM UTC

Where Are The GOP "Law And Order" Hand Wringers Now?

• 2 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Eugene Scott writes for the Washington Post, and there’s a local corollary to the moral of his story:

President Trump and many other Republican officials spent much of this year characterizing anti-racism protesters as “violent demonstrators” who put the safety of Americans at risk. But this past weekend’s gatherings of Trump supporters backing the president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election show that violence is an ongoing concern at these protests — one that the president and many GOP leaders have chosen to ignore.

After thousands of mostly maskless Trump supporters descended upon the nation’s capital this past weekend to voice their lack of confidence in the victory of President-elect Joe Biden, the mainstream media and even the Republican Party, things became violent as night fell…

Trump won the support of many voters in recent months by claiming that anti-racism protesters were destroying America’s cities with their violent behavior. Much of his suburban voter outreach was rooted in fearmongering that very often wasn’t supported by the reality of the protests calling out police violence against Black people. But that didn’t keep Trump, his fellow Republicans and the conservative media that often furthers their talking points from attempting to associate liberal activists with violence.

But now that violence seems to be a recurring part of pro-Trump protests — there were incidents of violence at the November protest of Trump supporters in D.C. following the election — the president and many other conservative elected officials have largely gone silent. [Pols emphasis]

The violence over the weekend in Washington, D.C. came about after a second, much smaller “Million MAGA March” event took place Saturday to reprise the first such demonstration a month before. But unlike a month ago, the street fighting between the relatively well-organized fascist brawler group Proud Boys (including Colorado members of the organization) and a loose assortment of lefties appears to have been much more widespread this past weekend. In another concerning escalation, Proud Boys were filmed tearing Black Lives Matter banners off of the walls of D.C. churches and setting them on fire–which could be a hate crime under the Church Arson Prevention Act.

The seriousness of the criminal activity in Washington over the weekend and the lack of condemnation from Republican officials and mouthpieces of violence committed by far-right thugs professing loyalty to President Donald Trump is of course very troubling. But after a summer of protests against police brutality in Denver, which did result in some property damage, there are a few Colorado Republicans whose silence today after pro-Trump thugs burned BLM banners in the streets of the nation’s capital is especially hypocritical:

Former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens says enough already. After watching the Colorado State Capitol trashed by vandals for nearly two months, he let Gov. Jared Polis have it, saying the Capitol deserves to be defended.

“This building represents all of us. This is really the emblem of our democracy. This is the “People’s House,” and to attack this is to attack us all,” said Owens. “I’ve tried to stay out of the public spotlight, but this is something I think the citizens of Colorado need to speak up about.”

Former Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams was even more bellicose, as usual:

Downtown Denver is a disgrace. The Colorado State Capitol is a disgrace. Hardworking small business owners and their employees have lost their livelihoods due to unrestrained violence. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Gov. Jared Polis allowed night after night of vandalism and desecration by rioting mobs in downtown Denver.

We gave former Gov. Owens exactly as much credit as he deserved–de minimis–for summoning up the courage to state publicly on November 22 that Trump should accept his defeat. That’s more than Dick Wadhams has managed, even as the rhetoric from Trump loyalist Republicans and the propagandized GOP base has become steadily more violent. Looking ahead at least in the short term, circumstances dictate that the greater risk of violence is from Owens’ and Wadhams’ side of the aisle.

If their clamor for “law and order” is more than a one-sided contrivance, now’s the time to prove it.