Republicans Can’t Believe Democrats Don’t Want to Work With Them Just Because of the Guns and the Death Threats and the Crackpot Conspiracy Theories

Forget for a moment that we’re living in the midst of a global pandemic and think back to a time when you went into an office five days a week and interacted with people outside of your family. Say you had a colleague who flagrantly violated the very clear company policy of not bringing a firearm into work and, when reprimanded about it, was like “F--k you, I’ll pack heat wherever and whenever I want, including during your presentation to the board of directors, Carol.” Say you had another who routinely kicked open the door to your office, ransacked your desk, and smeared s--t across your walls. Or another who, you learned one day while scrolling on your phone, had liked a Facebook post calling for you to be shot in the head and also posted a video online saying you should be executed. You’d probably report those coworkers to H.R. and expect that they’d be fired, rather than be told that you need to figure out how to work with them and that bringing up all the times they called for your violent murder was really unproductive and a sign you’re not a team player whose quarterly review would reflect that. You’d probably be like, “Wait, what? Are you joking? Did you not hear about the guns and all the times they said they wanted me dead?” Anyway, now you have a small idea of what Congress is presently like for Democrats.

While there’s been a lot of talk lately about “partisan rancor” and claims, by the GOP, that Democrats talk a big game about unity but then refuse to work across the aisle, the left is actually in the unique position of having to explain to the world that it’s not simply angry at the other side over ideological differences but because of the fact that it feels like Republicans are literally a threat to their lives. “The enemy is within the House of Representatives, a threat that members are concerned about, in addition to what is happening outside,” Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference on Thursday. That statement might’ve sounded over the top if you had no idea what’s been happening in Congress of late but was actually entirely appropriate given the violent coups, the guns, and the calls for Democrats to be killed. According to The Washington Post, some Democrats have purchased bulletproof vests and sought other protective measures against Republican colleagues they believe can’t be trusted—an entirely reasonable response given what and who they’re dealing with.

Democratic leaders are putting maximum pressure on the Republican leadership to denounce freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who once endorsed violence against members of Congress. One Democrat advanced a resolution to expel her from Congress. Greene, a onetime far-right online commentator, has a history of promoting violent ideas and beliefs. This week, social media postings surfaced showing she had liked Facebook posts that advocated violence against Democrats, including one that suggested shooting Pelosi in the head. Greene also spread conspiracy theories that the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead was a “false flag,” and new videos showed her stalking and harassing David Hogg, a Parkland student turned advocate of stricter gun safety laws, who was a teenager at the time. Pelosi and other senior Democrats have called on [House Minority Leader Kevin] McCarthy and other senior Republican leaders to address Greene’s social media comments…. Through a spokesman, McCarthy described Greene’s comments as “deeply disturbing.” “Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the congresswoman about them,” a McCarthy spokesman said, though he did not elaborate further.

Of course, the time to “have a conversation” with the congresswoman about her calls to have Democrats killed—in addition to other comments about 9/11 being an inside job, Muslims not belonging in government, and a “Jewish space laser” causing the California wildfires—was before she was elected to office. Speaking of Greene’s path to power, according to a new report from Axios, House Republican leaders met multiple times last summer to chat about fears Greene was a deranged lunatic who’d be a disaster for the party and then did…basically nothing.