Ginning up for Violence
If you have local friends who typically vote Republican, it might be time to ask them if they know what the leaders of the SpokaneGOP publish as a Newsletter and launch as a “Clarification Campaign”. The Republican Party is not a monolith (any more than the Democratic Party is), but those who speak for the Republican Party, including the biggest Republican Party organization in eastern Washington, the SpokaneGOP, are sounding more and more like an armed camp, guns bristling outward. The rhetoric is disturbing.
The tone of the November 2021 Spokane County GOP Newsletter (Issue 6)is stunning. As an official mouthpiece of the local Republican Party one cannot dismiss what one finds there as the behind the scenes ravings of a few fringe members. What is published as the official newsletter must needs represent the position of the Party—and that’s disturbing. Here’s a sample (the Bold is mine):
Throughout human history we have witnessed eras of extreme subjugation. Where it be by means of the government or a movement; every generation has its story to tell. Currently, citizens of a certain class in this country are experiencing an ebb in freedom. Cancel culture, wokeness, selective silencing, two-tiered justice and every other gross violation by diatribe being hurled our way, rips at the fabric of our most basic rights. As our enemies claw at us with their best effort at psychological warfare, take solace in our protections under God and our Constitution. We have the right to think and speak no matter how offensive it is, period. Unfortunately, our human rights are fueling the Left’s physical intimidation on anyone in their opposition.
It wouldn’t be fair to say that it’s by a social caste system we find ourselves ensnared but rather, a political one. The other side of the political spectrum has brought the water to a slow boil leaving us conflicted on how to get out of the pot. Turn the other cheek? Full on domestic warfare? Neither of the two schools of thought seem plausible yet both have certainly been employed in times of conflict. The toll of another Civil War would devastate us and turning the other cheek doesn’t work when evil is our rival.
Juli Skinner, the author of this piece, like so many spokespeople for the modern Trumpian Republican Party, feels put upon, subjugated by people wielding words, “psychological warfare”, and “diatribe”. With no sense of irony, she claims a “right to speak no matter how offensive it is” even as she condemns “the Left” for calling out the offense and claims a nebulous, unnamed “physical” intimidation. Then, in a breathtaking and frightening leap, Ms. Skinner evokes “another Civil War” as “plausible”.
Ms. Skinner’s reference to the American Civil War, rather than a small letter civil war, drips with irony. The Confederate South seceded in an attempt to ensure “states’ rights” for their white population to continue to enslave Black people. The modern day Republican Party’s cry of “states’ rights!” is still rooted in the wish to defy and undermine the reach of the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th). These three amendments were passed in the aftermath of the Civil War by a northern Republican Party that bares little resemblance the Republican Party of today. The intent of these amendments was to secure freedom, equality, voting rights, and equal treatment under the law for former slaves, an intent widely resented, detested, and subverted among states of the former Confederacy.
Whether or not Ms. Skinner is ignorant of the history of her party, her article is a disturbing nod to threatened violence in a local Republican Party apparatus that includes, nurtures, and depends on the support of paramilitary extremists like former state representative Matt Shea (“The Biblical Basis for War”). The SpokaneGOP has evolved into something my parents, people who considered themselves Republicans most of their lives, would not only not recognize but would find frightening. It is a party that has abandoned any form of substantive platform. Instead, it relies solely on the politics of grievance and distortion of the modern party’s origin to appease the sensibilities of decent people who have not yet come to realize what their party has become.
Visit the SpokaneGOP website. Take note of their support for continuing the pandemic by protesting pandemic related public health measures. Read the party newsletter. Marvel at its grievance and its less than subtle threat of violence.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. Based in Spokane Valley there is a separate but related entity with a claim to the local Republican mantle. Confusingly, it is “Republicans of Spokane County” (in contrast to the larger group, the SpokaneGOP, aka the “Spokane County Republican Party”). For years their signature event was a daytime cruise on Coeur d’Alene Lake. Curious, I attended a few of their meetings in pre-Covid times. The group seemed to consist of more traditional Republicans uncomfortable with the belligerent rhetoric of the Matt Sheas, Caleb Colliers, and Cecily Wrights of the larger group. (A meeting I attended featured speakers discussing the armed white supremacist views of and dangers of the Shea faction.) The current website of the Republicans of Spokane County reflects the same historical distortions as those of the SpokaneGOP as well as the same values statements. It is as though they are circling the wagons with the extremists of the SpokaneGOP.