John,

The Republican Party is at each other’s throats. Normally, I’d be thrilled to see it, but these aren’t normal times, and this isn’t normal political infighting.

It all started when the Republican National Committee decided to censure Republican Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for aiding the investigation into the deadly January 6, 2021 coup attempt.

See, according to the RNC’s resolution, the bloody insurrection that left 5 people dead, more than 150 injured, and many more traumatized was “legitimate political discourse” by “ordinary citizens,” not a violent mob seeking to terrorize their elected officials into invalidating the results of the freest and fairest election in U.S. history at the behest of their grifter idol, Donald Trump.

I’m sad to say I was actually pleasantly surprised this week when a handful of Republicans pushed back against the RNC and disputed the notion that there was anything legitimate about January 6. (It just goes to show how radicalized the GOP has become that I fully expected every Republican but Reps. Kinzinger and Cheney to back the resolution 100%.)

But it’s still just a handful of Republicans pushing back against the radicalism and increasing violence of the Trump loyalists in the GOP. The rest seem a-okay with it – or at least afraid to speak out against it.

The RNC resolution points to a larger problem with the Republican Party – it’s been completely hijacked by the Trump crime family, and as a result, its members are behaving more and more like mobsters, using violence and threats to get what they want.

To see how true this is, all you have to do is look at the rise in violence and arrests at local school board meetings over the past year.  

I mean, come on, these are SCHOOL BOARD meetings we’re talking about – those formerly sedate and sparsely-attended gatherings where parents and educators discuss how best to educate the local schoolchildren – and people are showing up with guns, threatening to shoot school staff, physically assaulting board members, and getting dragged out of auditoriums by the cops, all because some Faux News jackaloon told them little Suzie and Bobby might feel bad if they find out their great-grandpappy was a racist.

Then again, maybe mobsters are the wrong comparison here, because another so-called “legitimate political discourse” tactic favored by the Radical Right these days is that old Nazi standby – book burnings!  (And we all know the Nazis loved to use violence to get what they wanted, too.)

And that’s just the rank-and-file “ordinary citizens” in today’s GOP doing all this – the behavior of their leaders is even worse!

Here are just a few examples of what passes for “legitimate political discourse” in today’s Republican Party:

• Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) tweeted a violent cartoon depicting him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-NY) and swinging swords at President Biden.
   
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) produced a campaign ad featuring her pointing a gun at three Congressional Democrats known as “The Squad” – Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). The image was captioned “Squad’s Worst Nightmare.”
   
• Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) produced an ad called “Georgia Reloaded” that depicted him parachuting out of a military airplane and attacking anti-fascist activists on the ground.
   
• Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) urged his supporters to “lightly threaten” their Congress members to get them to support The Big Lie.

None of this is normal, and it’s not okay, folks!

That’s why I’m asking you to sign our petition demanding that your elected officials clearly and publicly denounce any and all violence or threats of violence as being fundamentally harmful to American democracy and having NO PLACE in our political discourse.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN!

After you sign, I hope you'll consider making a donation to help No Dem Left Behind defend democracy from the GQP.

We're going into the heart of Red-State America this year to take back the rural vote from crazies like Marjorie "Traitor" Greene and Madison Cawthorn.

Frankly, rural Americans have it hard enough without idiots like these making them look backwards and foolish while fighting tooth and nail to block any legislation that would actually HELP them.

Between brawls at local school board meetings, attacks on doctors and nurses saving folks from COVID, and shortages caused by delivery people too scared and selfish to get a simple shot, I truly believe that the silent majority of decent, hardworking rural Americans are fed up and ready to take out the trash.

No Dem Left Behind wants to help them do it, but we can't mobilize them without your financial support.

So whatever you can afford today, I hope you'll donate to send a powerful message: We the People are DONE with violent thugs in government!

Sappers clear the way, Airborne all the way!

--Richard