Erecting the gallows: congress and the maga republicans | thearticle

If and when the United States has a Congress, it is going to be ugly beyond anything the country has experienced since the Civil War.  As the fight over the speakership demonstrated, the

twenty-odd House members from the lunatic fringe of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party have zero interest in governing.  Rather, they seek only to destroy government – and their enemies.

  Preparations for retaliation against the Democrats began well before the voting for a new Speaker this week.  The unforgettable scene of the gallows that were constructed on the grounds of

Congress on January 6, 2021 to “hang Mike Pence” is evocative of what’s to come.  Just imagine, the gallows that day were assembled against one of their own.  It’s almost inconceivable to

imagine what they have in store for all of their perceived Democratic enemies. The very party that claims credit for being the only true patriots who love this country, and the only party

representing “Christian” family values, is about to demonstrate its ability to wreak punishment of Biblical proportions against everyone who has crossed them on any number of issues.  We can

expect political revenge against the party who wouldn’t tolerate The Big Lie; revenge against anyone who disagreed with their intolerance of Covid restrictions that unquestionably saved

hundreds of thousands of lives; revenge against anyone supporting the LGBTQ+ community for not adhering to their set of family values; revenge against the mainstream media.  The list goes on

and on.  The multiple Benghazi investigations that in 2016 served their political purpose of bringing down Hilary Clinton’s poll numbers, will seem quaint when compared to the vigilantism

of the current Republican party. Concerns about the violent nature of the forthcoming retribution are not without merit. Following the kidnap plot against Michigan Governor Whitmer, the

governor accused Trump and his vicious verbal attacks of having been a rallying cry for extremists.   Similarly, just as Trump had been entirely transparent about his intentions for the

January 6 insurrection, for several years Trump sycophants in Congress have made no secret of inciting violence against Democrats.  Many of these threats have resulted in action being taken

by unstable Trump followers.  We have every reason to believe that the rhetoric spewed by members of the soon-to-be-more-powerful party in in Congress will provoke more violence. Even prior

to being elected to Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene was calling for the execution of leading Democratic leaders and officials of the FBI, whom she considered to be part of the Deep State. 

One very alarming comment came in 2018 in response to the posted question: “Now do we get to hang Obama and Clinton?” Greene wrote: “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We

must be patient. This must be done perfectly, or liberal judges would let them off.” When she became a member of Congress her bullying antics continued, empowered by her position.  Recall

the antagonistic video footage that Greene posted of herself crouching in front of the closed office door of the Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (known as AOC) and

challenging her in an implicitly threatening manner (through the mail slot) to come out to debate her.   In 2021, she told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that she promised to “shut down” any

telecommunications companies that complied with requests from the January 6 Committee. Referring to the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opposition to Trump’s border wall, Greene suggested

Pelosi was guilty of treason, and pointed out that treason is punishable by death.  Such sentiments, such words, have consequences — as last November’s attack on Pelosi’s husband

demonstrated. Greene is now a prominent figure of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. Should Kevin McCarthy actually be voted in as Speaker of the House, we should remember his misgivings

regarding his own  mself-control when he stated that it would be difficult not to hit Pelosi over the head with the gavel.  What exactly are we to take seriously anymore?  Especially since

it was being hit over the head (albeit with a hammer, not a gavel), that was the modus operandi in the horrible attack against Paul Pelosi. There were warning signs of the violence at the

Capitol on January 6, but only in the days immediately before.   A Senate report released in June concluded that the Capitol police suffered from a “lack of consensus about the gravity of

the threat posed on Jan. 6” but also faulted the U.S. intelligence community, especially FBI and DHS, which “did not issue a threat assessment warning of potential violence targeting the

Capitol on Jan. 6.”   Given how out front the MAGA Republicans advocating violence have been, neither police nor intelligence should make that mistake again. Karen Treverton is former

Special Assistant to the President of RAND, and manager of the RAND Terrorism Database.  Gregory F. Treverton was Chair of the U.S. National Intelligence Council until January 2017.  He is

now Professor of the Practice at Dornsife College, University of Southern California and Chair, Global TechnoPolitics Forum. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s

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