The attack was just one of the first steps of Republicans’ fascist takeover, Ocasio-Cortez said.
Republicans across the country are waging a movement to remove and censure Democratic lawmakers simply for speaking out against the GOP — a movement that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) is saying is the next natural step after the GOP-backed attempted coup on January 6, 2021.
On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez spoke at a rally with Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Florida) and Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D), who Republicans voted to expel from the legislature earlier this month. At the rally, she said that the January 6 attack was just one of the first steps toward the GOP’s goal of total political control; rather than a large, violent coup, the GOP is implementing a slow takeover across the country.
“For [Republicans], January 6 was just a dress rehearsal. Because, legally, let’s not lose the plot: They were trying to block a duly elected official, in this case the president of the United States, from taking office,” she said.
“Legislatures across the country looked at that and [said], ‘you know what? Let’s try to get Representative Jones out from office. Let’s try to get Rep. Zooey Zephyr in Montana out of office. Let’s try to kick out the people because we cannot beat them,’” continued Ocasio-Cortez. “That is their motive.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s speech came as Montana Republicans voted to ban Zephyr, a Democrat and the first openly trans woman to be elected to the state’s legislature, from the House chamber for the remainder of the legislative session. The vote came after she spoke up for trans rights during a debate on a bill that would ban gender affirming care for minors, saying that Republicans backing the bill would have “blood” on their hands for voting to restrict access to the life-saving care.
Republicans honed in on the “blood” statement in supposedly justifying her removal, though it’s clear that their actual motivations were to silence a trans woman and Democrat in the chamber; saying one’s opponents would have “blood” on their hands is a common phrase in politics, but only Zephyr, it seems, has ever been punished for using it.
Zephyr’s removal is just one of Republicans lawmakers’ recent moves to silence their Democratic colleagues, in blatant displays of fascism. Just three weeks ago, Republicans voted to expel Jones and his colleague Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson (D) because the two participated in a peaceful protest in the state House calling for gun safety reform after a horrifying shooting at a school in Nashville killed three 9-year-old children and three adults. The two were later reinstated after widespread outcry over their expulsion.
These votes came after the Republican-dominated U.S. House voted in February to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), the first Black Muslim woman in Congress, from her committee assignments for what she said amounted to pure Islamophobia.
Meanwhile, Republicans and far right officials are rapidly eroding democracy across the country, slashing people’s rights, working to destroy voting rights in Democratic-leaning areas in particular and stoking vast corruption within the judicial system. Republicans’ fascist takeover seems to be happening in plain sight, while mainstream Democrats seem content to let it happen — though Ocasio-Cortez struck an optimistic note, saying that progressive movements will be able to stop them.
“I cannot emphasize enough — they will not win. This is the last gasp of a movement that is dying. This is what fascism does when it is on its hind heels,” she said. “It is always darkest before dawn. We are winning this thing.”
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NightwingDragon on April 28th, 2023 at 13:01 UTC »
We're past the "dress rehearsal" stage. They're already attempting to expel or otherwise silence Democrats across the country.
The Tennessee State House of Representatives expelled two black lawmakers for participating in a protest about the lack of gun control. A third protester was spared from also being expelled. I'm sure the fact that she was white had absolutely nothing to do with it and it was merely an amazing coincidence.
Lawmakers are attempting to force a Nebraska state Senator to recuse herself and stop her participation in a filibuster against anti-trans legislation because she has a trans child.
A transgender Montana lawmaker has been barred from the house floor for the remainder of 2023 after preventing her from even participating in a debate over anti-trans legislation. This gives the GOP the extra bonus of effectively preventing her from representing her district at all and making sure that nobody else can do it either since she's not actually expelled.
Fani Willis faces being fired from her position as DA due to a new bill that allows the state to remove her from her post for "acting in bad faith". The bill was a direct response to her ongoing attempts to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump over election interference.
Ron DeSantis is continuing his ongoing feud against Disney and his attempts at a takeover by rescinding decades-old agreements and installing handpicked cronies to throw a monkey wrench in the works because Disney had the audacity to actually speak in support of the LGBT community.
And none of this counts the literal hundreds of bills throughout the country that allow gerrymandering to expand and restrict voting rights to ensure that it becomes almost impossible for the people behind these attacks from being voted out of or otherwise removed from office.
This is their path forward. If they cannot pass their agenda legislatively, they'll just do it by force either through the conservative judicial system or simply throwing out any government official who dares to even speak up against them. This is not something they plan to do. It's something they are doing. Right now. As you read this. They are giving lawmakers the choice: Go along with their agenda, stay silent, or be forcibly removed and replaced with someone who will.
Ars3nal11 on April 28th, 2023 at 11:20 UTC »
Just a historical note: the Nazis took power in Germany despite never getting more than ~36% of any vote because none of the other parties (the social democrats, the Catholics, the communists, and even the antifascist conservatives) could form political alliances to form a majority government that would suppress the nazis. These parties were squabbling for decades and couldn’t see that their pettiness and (relatively minor) differences in economic views were dividing them and allowing the nazis to win seats by plurality. Once seated, the nazis were using the levers of government to ban other parties at the polls and expelling their representatives from the reichstag.
FoogYllis on April 28th, 2023 at 10:38 UTC »
The fact that Ted Cruz was recording talking about a plan to overthrow the government by installing trump as a dictator pretty much confirms that they were trying to succeed in their efforts. We should be thankful that they are incompetent but also know that they will try again. Also all their bemoaning of election integrity is just a projection of the illegal stuff they are constantly trying to do to burn our democracy down.