Rep. Elise Stefanik’s misplaced outrage
Harvard University’s Kennedy School tossed Elise Stefanik from a senior advisory committee on Tuesday for her election distortions, and — make no mistake — the congresswoman is outraged.
The North Country Republican issued a scathing statement condemning Harvard’s “march toward a monoculture of like-minded, intolerant liberal views” and its “snearing disdain for everyday Americans.” She likewise denounced the school’s decision during two Fox News appearances.
“This is an example of Harvard bowing to the woke, far-left mob,” she told Sean Hannity Tuesday. “Harvard is bowing to the left woke mob,” Stefanik repeated the next morning on Fox and Friends.
Stefanik’s use of the word “mob” is interesting, given that an actual mob stormed the U.S. Capitol last week in support of
President Donald Trump’s fantasy of a stolen election.
The mayhem resulted in five deaths, including the killing of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. More than 50 other officers were injured as the, yes, mob attacked them with fists, fire extinguishers and, God help us, American flags.
Some in the crowd carried nooses, bats, pipes, chemical irritants and zip ties that could be used to handcuff people, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some chanted for the hanging of the vice president.
It was a vile, savage attack on a symbol of the republic and democracy itself, a dark yet important moment in the nation’s history. And yet, somehow, Stefanik hasn’t managed to speak about it with the vehemence or emotion she directed at Harvard, her alma mater.
To be clear, Stefanik did denounce the attack. “I fully condemn the dangerous violence and destruction of the Capitol grounds,” she wrote on Facebook. “These actions are unamerican.”
Yet considering the shocking enormity of what happened, Stefanik’s rebuke of the riot feels perfunctory and routine. Moreover, she hasn’t said a word about what might have provoked the violence or what it might mean for the state of the country.
Nor has she uttered an unkind word toward the man who, as one critic put it, “summoned his mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”
What left-wing socialist said that? Why, it was Liz Cheney, Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and possessor of one of the more conservative voting records in the House.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” added Cheney, who is also the author of a 21-page memo detailing how Trump’s election claims are false and why courts ruled against them. (Please forward it to your election-skeptical friends and family.)
Here, also, are a few words from Sen. Ben Sasse, the conservative Republican from Nebraska: “Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the President’s addiction to constantly stoking division. Americans are better than this: Americans aren’t nihilists.”
And, lastly, a sentence from Phil Scott, Republican governor of Vermont, across Lake Champlain from Stefanik’s 21st Congressional District: “The President’s delusion, fabrication, self-interest, and ego have led us — step by step — to this very low, and very dangerous, moment in American history.”
I apologize if I’ve belabored the point, but I’m including those quotes to show that any debate about the election is not between liberal and conservative, left and right, Democrat and Republican. Instead, it is a contest between fact and fantasy, truth and lies, light and darkness.
And Stefanik, unfortunately, has been on the wrong side of the fight. Since Election Day, she has repeated debunked conspiracies, as noted by fact checkers, and chosen the irresponsible path. She has contributed to the mass delusion undergirding last week’s seditious violence.
That’s why Harvard booted her from the committee for its Institute of Politics.
“Elise has made public assertions about voter fraud in November’s presidential election that have no basis in evidence, and she has made public statements about court actions related to the election that are incorrect,” said Douglas Elmendorf, dean of the Kennedy School. “Moreover, these assertions and statements do not reflect policy disagreements but bear on the foundations of the electoral process.”
I’ll concede that Stefanik isn’t necessarily wrong when she says college campuses have become political monocultures marked, too often, by an unfortunate intolerance for right-leaning thought. I share the concern, which is why I wrote a column that objected to the shouting down of a conservative economist and others defending a Skidmore professor who attended a pro-police rally.
But Stefanik’s rhetoric since Election Day has been recklessly irresponsible, and Harvard has no obligation to tolerate a politician who cynically abetted a disinformation campaign that resulted, ultimately, in a mob’s attack on the Capitol. The school’s obligation is to elevate truth.
Stefanik is not a victim here, despite her protestations. As Sasse said, lies have consequences.