By the Gatepost Editorial Board
It has been one year since the domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol which occurred after former President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to go there to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential electoral win.
Within just hours of Trump encouraging his supporters to head to the U.S. Capitol, they broke through the final police barricade and began to smash the windows and open the doors in order to infiltrate the building with the intention of disrupting the certification of the electoral results.
These violent actions resulted in a lockdown of the U.S. Capitol.
While rioters marched through the halls of the Capitol, jumping from the Senate balcony to the Goor, and breaking into lawmakers’ offices – including that of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – Trump said and did nothing to quell the insurrection.
One year later, while many of those who infiltrated the Capitol are now serving jail sentences,
Republican members of Congress continue to downplay the severity of what happened that infamous day. They also refuse to hold Trump responsible for his actions and words.
Even a year after the insurrection, the only Republicans who seem to remember that their first loyalty is to the Constitution and the country and not the Republican Party and Trump are Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Cheney and Kinzinger are the only Congressional members of the Republican Party who were willing to serve on the House of Representatives’ special committee established to investigate the Jan. 6 attack.
But while Cheney and Kinzinger uphold their oath to the Constitution, other Congressional members of the Republican Party uphold their allegiance to Trump and his delusions by downplaying the severity of what happened in our nation’s capital on that infamous day.
The Washington Post has reported Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) said during a hearing that TV footage of those who forced their way into the Capitol showed them behaving in an “orderly fashion.” He said, “You would actually think it was a normal tourist visit” without knowing the context of Jan. 6, 2021.
According to Politifact, Reps. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) and Paul Gosar (R-Az.) claimed the left-wing group Antifa was behind the attacks.
And in December of 2021, Trump continued to call the event “a protest against a rigged election” during his Dallas rally.
When will Republicans and Trump start calling the event what it was?
The insurrection is a domestic terrorist attack that threatened our country’s democracy.
When will the Republican party stop riding the coattails of Donald Trump and start thinking and speaking for their constituents?
When members of our Congress get sworn into their positions they take an oath. An oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
But it seems like Republicans like Cawthorn and Gosar forgot this.
More Republicans need to follow in Cheney and Kinzinger’s footsteps. They stood by their constitutional oath by recognizing Jan. 6 as an insurrection.
Many Republicans defend Trump about the insurrection, when they should be condemning it and other acts of domestic terrorism.
Even if in some cases where it is popular for constituents to support the actions on Jan. 6, members of Congress must recognize the damage these actions have caused to our democracy or else it continues to delegitimize its institution. America is supposed to fight for democracy around the world and serve as an ideal example.
This is embarrassing.
The Republican party needs to stop picking and choosing what parts of the Constitution they decide to defend.
They can’t choose to defend the 2nd Amendment and then allow crazed and delusional Trump supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol and interfere with a legitimate election.
Republican leaders need to stop being loyal to Trump and his followers and they need to start being loyal to the Constitution – which they swore they would.
Unlike in a monarchy, we are not bound to defend leaders who don’t speak the truth.
The United States was founded in response to King George’s tyranny. Our American nation was built upon pillars of democracy. Leaders are elected to serve their terms and voted out of office when their practices no longer reflect the ideologies of the people they represent.
The moment Trump questioned the legitimacy of the election results, he undermined the institution of democracy.
Trump didn’t accept the vote and honor the democratic process.
Ever since Jan. 6 we haven’t healed because Republicans in Congress continue to play down his tyrannous actions.
They took an oath to uphold our Constitution – not Trump’s delusions.