“The leadership of the Republican Party of the House has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy and anti-Semitism,” Cheney tweeted Monday morning. “History has taught us that what begins with words ends much worse. @GOP leaders must give up and reject these views and those who support them. “
Which is quite humiliating.
There is no easy answer to this question, but there is some evidence to suggest that the People’s Party leaders in the House of Representatives – one of whom was Cheney before he was ousted last year for wanting to criticize former President Donald Trump – were at least wanting to look the other way, as some of their ranks have flirted with key figures in the white nationalist movement.
In February, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Green and Arizona’s Paul Gossar addressed a conference hosted by Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist. (For Gosar, this was the latest in a series of episodes linking him to white nationalist leaders and rhetoric.)
While some Republicans – most notably Utah Sen. Mitt Romney – have criticized Green and Gossar for their presence, House of Representatives minority leader Kevin McCarthy was largely a mother.
This exchange in early March between Republican reporters in California and Capitol Hill on this topic tells:
Reporter: Any information on your talks with Congressman Gosar and Green?
McCarthy: Yes, I talked to Green. I’m still waiting to talk to Gosar.
Reporter: And?
McCarthy: I talked to them.
Reporter: But I think you told Jake and Manu [Raju] no room for that?
McCarthy: There’s no room for that. There is no place for what has happened to this organization, and there will never be in this party and it will never be tolerated.
Reporter: Will he go again?
McCarthy: No, she’s not going again.
Reporter: Any consequences for her?
McCarthy: Look, my conversations with my members are just that, and I appreciate you asking. … They have the ability to form commissions based on that time when it comes.
Which, well, yes.
Over the weekend, Illinois Republican Republican Adam Kinzinger suggested that New York Republican Elise Stefanick, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives who replaced Cheney last year, push the “white replacement theory” – the idea that white people are deliberately replaced in America by minorities. Kinzinger referred to Facebook ads paid for by Stefanik’s campaign, which used language substitution theory. “The Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move to date: A PERMANENT ELECTION,” reads the headline, with the image of migrants crossing the border reflected in President Joe Biden’s sunglasses. In a statement issued Monday morning, Stefan DeGrass, a senior adviser to Stefanik, said that “any suggestion or attempt to blame Congresswoman for the disgusting Buffalo shooting is a disgustingly new low level for the left, their Never Trump allies and their praising stenographers in the media. “
Which, well, well.
Here’s the thing: when you don’t condemn and punish members of your own party, when you flirt with white nationalists and white nationalist ideology, you open the door to make it happen more often.
This fact does not mean that people like McCarthy or Stefanic are directly to blame for what happened in Buffalo over the weekend. But there is no doubt that Republican leaders have allowed intolerance – and harmful concepts such as white replacement theory – to emerge in some of their ranks over the past few years.
And as Cheney rightly points out, these actions – or, more precisely, this inaction – have consequences.
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