Republicans want reconciliation w/o apologies, concessions w/o sacrifice, power w/o accountability

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Dr. Joanne Freeman
@jbf1755
“[Republicans] want reconciliation w/o apologies, concessions w/o sacrifice, power w/o accountability. And many of them are using threats of violence to encourage Democrats & the disloyal to fall in line”

My new piece on accountability in ⁦@nytimes⁩
A cartoon depicting a fight on the floor of the Congress Hall in Philadelphia in 1798 between Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont and Representative Roger Griswold of Connecticut.
Opinion | Why 1850 Doesn’t Feel So Far Away
Congress has been here before. It wasn’t pretty.
nytimes.com
6:09 AM · Jan 29, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/opinion/political-violence-congress.html

Scarcely had the violence ebbed on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 when the Republican calls for healing began. Representative Debbie Lesko of Arizona made an anti-impeachment cease-and-desist plea on Jan. 12 that was typical of many. Addressing Democrats, she warned that impeachment would “further divide our country, further the unrest and possibly incite more violence.” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina concurred, declaring on Fox News that calls for impeachment would “incite more violence” and “divide the country.”

Although couched in calls for unity, these warnings are remarkably one-sided. There is no talk of reconciliation or compromise. No acceptance of responsibility. Lots of blame casting. And little willingness to calm and inform their base. Even now, some Republicans refuse to admit that Joe Biden won the election, and the Senate vote on an impeachment trial on Jan. 26 suggests that most Republicans want no investigation and will place no blame. They want reconciliation without apologies, concessions without sacrifice, power without accountability.

And many of them are using threats of violence to encourage Democrats and the disloyal to fall in line. If you impeach the president there will be violence, they charge. Masked in democratic platitudes like “unity” and “healing,” the inherent menace in such pleas is utterly deniable. But they are threats nonetheless.

Not all Republican threats have been subtle. Consider the words of the newly elected Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina at a Turning Point USA event on Dec. 21. “Call your congressman,” he told attendees, “and feel free — you can lightly threaten them and say, you know what, if you don’t start supporting election integrity, I’m coming after you. Madison Cawthorn is coming after you. Everybody’s coming after you.” Cawthorn later denounced the violence at the Capitol. But his call for “light” threats was part of the roiling rhetoric that paved the way to Jan. 6.

*snip*

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. They can say truth first: "Biden is President because he won an accurate count. The Steal was a lie"

[Nevilledog]

2. So easy, and they'll never do it.

Why should they, there are no consequences for lying.