Republicans Don’t Want “Unity,” They Want Immunity
You can tell from what they’re not saying
It’s hard to tell which is more disturbing. On the one hand, you have 6 Republican Senators and 121 House Representatives who insisted on claiming, without evidence, that the 2020 election was fraudulent, even after the Capitol building was stormed by a like-minded mob. On the other hand, you have Republican politicians calling, en masse, for “unity” after the insurrection attempt by their followers failed.
Even if it is less disturbing, the calls for unity are far more dangerous.
As you read this, members of far-right paramilitary groups like the Proud Boys are actively planning attacks on the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., as well as on all 50 statehouses across the country in the days before the upcoming inauguration. As alarmist and absurd as it might sound, this is not hypothetical or a conjecture: This comes straight from an internal bulletin at the FBI.
But Republican politicians want “unity.”
If they really wanted unity, these Republican politicians would go further than merely “not condoning” violence. They would go further than issuing boilerplate statements about violence being unacceptable. They would tell their followers, very specifically and under no uncertain terms, to…
