Opinion | The threat of violence now infuses GOP politics. We should all be afraid.

May 21, 2021 ☼ election-2020trumpcheney

Source: The Washington Post - Link

American politics is being conducted under the threat of violence.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has a talent for constructive bluntness, describes a political atmosphere within the GOP heavy with fear. “If you look at the vote to impeach,” she said recently, “there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives.” The events of Jan. 6 have only intensified the alarm. When Donald Trump insists he is “still the rightful president,” Cheney wrote in an op-ed for The Post, he “repeats these words now with full knowledge that exactly this type of language provoked violence on Jan. 6.” And there’s good reason, Cheney argued, “to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again.”

Violence? Perhaps not, but certainly a lot of sand has been thrown in the gears of democracy, and the person with the shovel is Trump.