Histrionic Demands for Tribal “Justice” by Precluding Deliberative Procedure, Undermine Democracy by Eviscerating Democratic Norms
Why Are our Elected Representatives Increasingly Joining the Ranks of Protesters?
I don’t have an opinion on whether those representatives should, or should not, have been expelled from the Tennessee legislature. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t care.
I will say while expelling them merely for bringing a bullhorn into the chamber seems extreme, I think censure rather would be warranted at least. But what really incenses me about this incident is that two elected representatives once again have resorted to the mob tactics of violent coercive pressure to try and hijack the political process by force.
Just last week Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos went to New York City to join the ranks of the reportedly sparse Trump fanatics protesting the indictment. Recall Donald Trump, on January 6th, considered what was, and degenerated into, the insurrection the Stop-the-Steal “protest.”
These Democratic representatives in Tennessee, leading fierce protests for gun legislation brought a bullhorn into the “well” where politicians debate policy and craft legislation, screaming at their fellow lawmakers. Echoing Donald Trump on January 6th, these lawmakers are calling their threatening grandstanding with a bullhorn just a form of “protest.”
I will never forget the progressive NYU professor on the Agenda with Steve Paikhin, who defended students shutting down visiting speakers they dislike as merely exercising their first amendment right to protest. Just weeks ago where a conservative judge spoke at Stanford Law School, one law student said to Judge Kyle Duncan, “I hope your daughter gets raped.” I suppose that progressive professor would celebrate this exercise of one’s right to protest, as an end in itself. I suppose then those kids were not spoiled entitled millennial snowflake whiny brats, but rebels actually speaking truth to power. If those kids are rebels, then I suppose January 6th was an attempt at revolution.
And I suppose the riots in France are also merely protests, and the French are rebels too. Or the mob Bolsonaro unleashed in the wake of his election loss. This is all noble protesting.
Pretending this violent coercion is either justified, fair or harmless speech however has consequences. Donald Trump recently said in Waco Texas at his first official 2024 campaign rally, “I am your justice. I am your retribution,” admitting to us what January 6th was really about: spilling blood. In France “protestors” if you want to call them, fantasize that Macron is a king that like Louis they have the right potentially to behead. Both the hard left, and far right nationalists like Marine Le Pen—who might still seize power someday—egg these people on.
Trump’s election lie and his Stop the Steal protest has given rise to a congressional committee on the “weaponization of government.” In the last midterm elections, his lie propelled election-denying fanatics to government office around the country—setting America up for future constitutional crises. And the George Floyd riots justified in the mainstream media as “peaceful,” gave rise to the “Defund the Police” movement that has actually succeeded in cutting funding to police organizations around the country, as well as making sentencing more lenient, unleashing waves of record-breaking post-pandemic violent and nonviolent crime. Now the homicide rate is higher than it has been in decades, and cities don’t have the resources, or the public support to do anything about it. And national high crime is as normal now as high inflation.
I don’t care whether those Democratic lawmakers have a point that mass shootings in America are a huge problem. It is one of our biggest problems. Everybody knows that, and everybody agrees. Nevertheless politicians can’t lead violent coercive mobs with bullhorns, no less than they can tell protesters to assault the Capitol and “fight like hell.” Politicians can’t be the instruments of the dumb, blind, unconstrained popular will. The news media, whether Fox or MSNBC or CNN, cannot encourage this. And the people themselves, whom I blame the most, cannot allow themselves to be led by zealots and charlatans to take part in things just to be a part of things and post on social media about it!
I don’t care if as they say on CNN, the “real” problem is that a bunch of kids once again were massacred. Nor do I care what those lawmakers’ punishment is or whether race played a role in them getting expelled. Elected representatives cannot act like that.
— Jay