Every Republican candidate should answer four questions

Our democracy is in grave danger. Not from an outside enemy. From within -- the Republican Party. This is a tweet shared on MSNBC today. MAGA, of course, is Trump's slogan: Make America Great Again.

If only Republican leaders were behind the party's anti-democracy movement, there wouldn't be as much reason for concern. Or, panic. But two-thirds of Republicans wrongly believe Biden wasn't elected legitimately.

Trump's Big Lie that the election was stolen from him has infected the minds of a clear majority of Republicans. This has made agreeing with the Big Lie a prerequisite for Republican candidates who want to win an election by garnering the support of their fellow GOP members.

Which means every Republican candidate for local, state, or national office should have to answer four questions put forth by Representative Eric Slalwell (D - California) on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show today. I've fiddled with the wording of a couple of the questions to make them clearer.

(1) Do you acknowledge that Joe Biden is the legitimately-elected president?
(2) Do you disavow QAnon?
(3) Do you agree that the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in your state in 2024 should get all of that state's electoral votes? (unless the state is one that splits electoral votes)
(4) Do you disavow violence following an election by supporters of the losing candidate?

These questions also should be asked of every candidate running for a non-partisan office, like Mayor of Salem or the Salem City Council. Republican candidates shouldn't be able to ignore the questions just because the ballot don't have a "R" after their name.

On January 1 the New York Times editorial board published "Every Day Is Jan. 6 now." I learned about it on today's Chris Hayes MSNBC show. The movement, of course, is the Trump-addled portion of the Republican Party, which as noted before, is a clear majority of the GOP.

Here's some additional quotes from the editorial.

Jan. 6 is not in the past; it is every day.

It is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, “When can we use the guns?” and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. It is Donald Trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation’s two major political parties.

In short, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists. Rather, survival depends on looking back and forward at the same time.

...A healthy, functioning political party faces its electoral losses by assessing what went wrong and redoubling its efforts to appeal to more voters the next time. The Republican Party, like authoritarian movements the world over, has shown itself recently to be incapable of doing this. Party leaders’ rhetoric suggests they see it as the only legitimate governing power and thus portrays anyone else’s victory as the result of fraud — hence the foundational falsehood that spurred the Jan. 6 attack, that Joe Biden didn’t win the election.

Note what's said in the last paragraph above. Read it again. Let it sink into your consciousness. 

The Republican Party, like authoritarian movements the world over...

Comments

[Frank Haynes]

My 4 questions every Democrat candidate for local, state, or national office should have to answer four questions:

1) Do you acknowledge mail-in ballets are susceptible to misuse?
2) Do you disavow Antifa?
3) Do you agree only legal residents and one person one vote should occur and that electoral votes are distributed proportionate to those validated?
(4) Do you disavow violence following an election by supporters of the losing candidate?

[E.M.]

Thank you Blogger Brian for sharing the Representative Eric Swalwell questions. I also thank poster Frank Haynes for his alternative questions. Below are my answers. I encourage both of you to explain why my answers are wrong and what I should do to correct my errors.

1. Yes, I acknowledge that Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president of the Untied States.

Yes, I acknowledge that mail-in ballots are susceptible to misuse as are all voting processes.

However as a resident of Oregon who has used and continues to verify mail-in ballots cast votes I remain confident in the mail-in ballot confirmation process.

2. I am unprepared to disavow “Qanon” until I receive concert information identifying the individuals and the beliefs they espouse.

I am unprepared to disavow “Antifa” until I receive concert information identifying individual members and the beliefs they espouse.

3. “Do you agree that the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in your state should get all that stated electoral votes?”

I am unprepared to answer the above question because it assumes (a) current state-by-state presidential electoral practices will remain the same and (b) it assumes proportional electoral balloting is invalid.

“Do you agree only legal residents and one person one vote should occur and that electoral votes are distributed proportionate to those validated?

I am prepared to answer the first part of the question. Yes to legal residents and yes to one person one vote. However, I am unprepared answer the proportional vote distribution question because it assumes (a) current state-by-state presidential electoral practices will remain the same and (b) it assumes proportional electoral balloting is a preferred system. I would further challenge the citing of “validated” because only validated ballots, no matter the electoral distribution system used, are the only ballots that are actually counted.

4. Yes, I disavow "violence by supporters of the losing candidate" asked by both questioners.

[Tendzin]

So, so so so so sooo so silly, but also tragic.

How many people died in the "insurrection" on January 6th? Only one, a female military veteran who was shot in the neck by a law enforcement officer with a reckless professional record. She was unarmed btw, and was shot without warning because she was climbing through a window.

January 6th was a few hundred unarmed yokels trespassing. The left's reaction is political theater, though (again tragic) some people believe the hype.

Where is all this violence the left assures us is coming from the right? They've been telling the world this lie for the last 5 years (remember the Proud Boys threat?), nothing ever came to pass. All lies, all theater, all a con, all a defamation of half the country, and all a most definite attempt to derail genuine democracy. And all quite rude.

Democracy is indeed in trouble. For the last 5 years the left, the media, event the FBI worked daily to tell the public that the sitting president was a traitor working with Russia. It was all a lie, and the biggest propaganda campaign ever against a U.S. president.

[Jack Holloway]

Tendzin --

"January 6th was a few hundred unarmed yokels trespassing."

They did a hell of a lot more than trespass. Some 80 Capitol police officers are still recovering from injuries -- some quite serious -- caused by those "trespassers," who also caused 30 million dollars' worth of damage to the Capitol.

Many millions of Americans saw the videos of the violence both inside and outside of the Capitol, so your attempt to cover up what really happened will end up in the dustbin of history where it belongs.