• The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted along party lines to remove Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her seat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
• Earlier, House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) used his own discretion to remove Democratic California representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
• The Democrats removed Gosar and Greene—both members of the far-right group—after they threatened violence against their Democratic colleagues, while Republicans removed Schiff and Swalwell over make-believe dangers and now have removed Omar allegedly over policy differences.
• McCarthy catered to far-right members in order to get the votes to become speaker; now he is giving those members what they want in order to keep them from ousting him and to get them on board for imperative legislation.
• The power the far-right representatives are getting is making them a force distinct from the rest of the Republican Party.
• Republicans in the 1980s made a deliberate decision to court voters with religion, racism, and sexism in order to hold onto power.
• The Republicans have created a group of voters and their representatives who are openly white supremacists and who believe that any attempt to use the government to hold the economic playing field level is socialism.
• The House voted to condemn socialism—another attempt to appease that far right—while Republicans then chided those Democrats who refused to vote in favor of that condemnation.
• Former president Trump “retruthed” the words of a person who warned that he and “80,000,000” were willing to fight for Trump and were “Locked and LOADED.”
• Some of the far-right group are wearing AR-15 pins, but have not, so far, introduced any gun bills.
Published February 3, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 2, 2023