It is astonishing to me that the House Democratic leadership cancelled a planned session of Congress this Thursday due to a possible attack plot by pro-Trump terrorists, without making a full-court, unmistakable press in the media to hold not just Donald Trump but the GOP accountable for their role in encouraging this far-right menace. After all, the FBI has assessed that the fake theory that Democrats stole the November election from Trump is inspiring far-right extremism — a falsehood propounded not only by the former president but by a strong majority of Republicans in Congress, to the point that adherence to this slander against our democracy has become a litmus test for Republican loyalty not only to the former president, but to a sinister, ever more authoritarian brand of anti-democratic politics. For Democrats to cancel Congress for a day due to threats from GOP-aligned terrorists, and not spend that day talking nonstop about how these terrorists are inspired by election lies propagated by Republican politicians, is simply bizarre. These violent threats against Congress are an abomination, and should be treated as such; they should certainly not be normalized.
Thank goodness no attack materialized this week, but closing Congress, even as a prudent precaution, without an accompanying indictment of those politicians who provide the terrorists inspiration and political cover, also promotes the distortion that Congress as a whole is the target, when the reality is that it’s Democrats in Congress who are the real targets of the Trumpist terrorists. The Republicans’ broad refusal to denounce the fake tales of conspiracy that drive these insurrectionists is an act of complicity, and deserves the harshest ongoing condemnation.
Thursday’s closure itself is also a worrisome decision, substituting fear in place of what should be a stance of furious resolve against armed insurrectionists. I understand that there is a Democratic strategy, certainly coming out of the White House but also embraced by most Democratic members of Congress, to turn down the temperature on some conflicts and press on with the people’s business. But even as the Democrats pushed Thursday’s planned work into Wednesday evening to avoid disruptions, this closure still tells far-right terrorists that their plots do in fact have a chance of interfering with the Democrats’ agenda. That does not seem like a great recipe for shutting down and discrediting this extremist movement.