I’m writing this specifically to the roughly 856,000 registered Utah Republicans: Look at your party, look at what it has become and ask yourself some simple questions.
“Is this who I am? Is this where I belong?”
They are questions brought into razor-sharp focus Friday, when the Republican National Committee, meeting in Salt Lake City, passed a resolution with reportedly near-universal support condemning two of their own — Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger — for being part of the House investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and, in the process, engaging in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
“Legitimate political discourse.” Take just a minute to think about that phrase.
Then go to your computer and watch some of the scenes from that day.
Watch police officers dragged down the steps of the United States Capitol and into a frenzied mob, some while being beaten with flagpoles.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Robert Gehrke.
Watch the members of Congress huddling in the gallery and the doors of the chamber barricaded, security on the other side with guns drawn, or the security footage of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney warned to scramble for safety by an officer fleeing the mob.
Consider the terror that Officer Daniel Hodges must have felt as he was being crushed in a doorway and beaten in the head with his own baton, believing he might die.
Try to comprehend the sting of the bear spray being blasted into the eyes of police officers trying to hold back a rabid mob.
Remember the image of Ashli Babbitt trying to crawl through a smashed window to enter a hallway where members of Congress were hiding before she was shot and killed.
FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 file photo, people shelter in the House gallery as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. The attack on the U.S. Capitol by an angry mob of President Donald Trump's supporters shocked many Americans who thought such a violent assault by their fellow countrymen wasn't possible. But Timothy McVeigh's hatred of the federal government led him to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, over 25 years earlier, on April 19, 1995, and killed 168 people. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Roughly 150 police officers were injured on that day. Countless are still dealing with the trauma. More than 750 of the rioters have been charged with crimes.
All of that violence and destruction to try to upend a democratic election and the peaceful transfer of power this nation has prided itself upon since its creation.
This, according to the Republican Party — not the fringes, the recognized leadership of the party — is now “legitimate political discourse.” And those like Cheney and Kinzinger who think otherwise and demand answers and accountability are shunned, censured and driven out.
”Shame falls on a party that would censure persons of conscience, who seek truth in the face of vitriol,” Romney said in a statement Friday.
So ask yourself those questions again: Am I part of a group that believes what transpired on Jan. 6 is legitimate political discourse? Is this really where I belong?
FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo violent rioters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol in Washington. The words of Donald Trump supporters who are accused of participating in the deadly U.S. Capitol riot may end up being used against him in his Senate impeachment trial as he faces the charge of inciting a violent insurrection. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
A Hinckley Institute of Politics and Deseret News poll this week found 77% of Utah Republicans opposed the violence on Jan. 6. Those who fall on the other side of that figure are too far gone, completely untethered from any semblance of reality.
For that 77%, don’t look away. Don’t pretend that it is normal to attack the constitutional underpinnings of our democracy and to normalize violence in pursuit of power.
Every Utah Republican needs to answer these questions for himself or herself. Is this really who you are? Is this where you belong? And if it’s not, what are you willing to do about it?
