Unhappy with the national election results of 1864, John Wilkes Booth killed President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater. As he fled, he insisted that “tyranny” had gotten what it deserved.
Similarly disenchanted with previous election results, two gunmen attempted to kill President Harry Truman while he and his family were in Blair House during renovations at the White House in 1950.
Thirteen years later, Lee Harvey Oswald expressed his dissatisfaction with the election results of 1960 by killing President Kennedy in Dallas. This brings us to the attack on the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6 last year.
At their winter meeting on February 4th, the Republican National Committee censured Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their participation on the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
As odious as that action was, it was insignificant compared to the RNC’s pronouncement in the same document that the riot that threatened the lives of elected representatives, including the vice president, injured over 100 police officers, and desecrated the seat of the world’s oldest surviving democracy was an act of “legitimate political discourse.”
The mob that assaulted the Capitol arrived with the intent of overturning the results of the election that removed Donald Trump from the Oval Office. Their candidate did not win; therefore, the election must have been a fraud and deserved to be annulled, instead of waiting, as the founders intended, for another election.
The rioters were armed with various weapons and chanted “Hang Mike Pence” as they made their way through the labyrinth of offices. Their desire to assassinate Pence derived from his refusal to yield to the mob’s demand to reinstall Trump in the White House. The RNC’s description of the riot, therefore, fails in its rhetorical choices.
First, the riot was not “legitimate.” The standard definition of legitimate is “conforming to laws or rules.” Felonies are thus always by definition illegitimate simply because they are proscribed by law. Assault and battery, theft, destruction of property, breaking and entering are not and cannot conform to our system of laws and rules and are therefore illegitimate.
Second, the riot was not an act of “political discourse.” It was instead an act of political anarchy. Discourse carries with it the opportunity for the free exchange of ideas, proposals or other topics that can be discussed rationally and respectfully. All of that was missing as the mob stormed the Capitol, screaming at and assaulting anyone in its path, and allowing no opposition.
As the Jan. 6 committee accumulates more evidence about the planning and implementation of the riot, any claim of “legitimate political discourse” evaporates as quickly as the RNC’s credibility.
New Hampshire Public Radio has a wonderful program called “Civics 101” that provides a fundamental description of how our democracy functions. Daily we see declarations that indicate some members of Congress, state legislatures, and PACs need a refresher course in, yes, legitimate political discourse.
(Charles Huckelbury lives in Henniker.)