Johnson, Fitzgerald and Tiffany need to go
It was one of Scott Fitzgerald’s first votes in Congress — and he voted to give aid and comfort to an insurrection.
This is what putting Donald Trump ahead of democracy, the Constitution and the will of the citizens has wrought, Wisconsin.
Fitzgerald was joined by fellow Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany in voting with those who wanted to reject Electoral College votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania, just hours after a band of hooligans roused by Trump stormed the Capitol.
Members of Congress who supported this effort have been dubbed the Sedition Caucus for their role in inciting violence against our government in order to overturn the results of the presidential election that Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes.
Fitzgerald and Tiffany were the only members of the House of Representatives from Wisconsin who joined in this insurrection built upon a foundation of ignorance and lies.
Sen. Ron Johnson decided to vote
against both baseless challenges to the state’s certified votes only after our nation’s Capitol was sacked as Congress gathered to perform its simple constitutional duty to recognize the Electoral College vote. But Johnson had been shilling for Trump and this moment for days, adding kindling to the megalomaniac’s fire, so his last-minute switch does nothing to absolve his role in stoking this shameful day in history.
Johnson is a leading member of the Senate’s Sedition Caucus — led by the odious Josh Hawley of Missouri. This group threatened to challenge the counting of Electoral College votes even though there was no evidence of fraud, even though dozens of lawsuits to overturn the election had failed for lack of evidence in both state and federal courts, and even though all votes had been certified by the states, some after recounts.
Hawley had the audacity to send out a fundraising appeal yesterday as criminals were breaking through windows at the Capitol and streaming in.
After seeing the damage that their deceitful alliance with Trump has caused, Fitzgerald, Tiffany, Johnson and the rest of the plotters should resign their offices immediately.
All three deserve to be expelled when the new Congress is fully seated, just as 10 senators were expelled in 1861 for refusing to accept the will of the voters who elected Abraham Lincoln as our nation’s first Republican president.
What these legislators did, along with their would-be king, is as dangerous to American democracy as the actions of secessionist lawmakers 160 years ago.
Expel them now — every one of them. We would call for the same action if they were Democrats, denying the results of a fair election and inciting supporters to violent revolt. People of good will in both political parties need to stand up and say enough is enough because government of the people, by the people and for the people is once more in peril.
Trump’s own former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis correctly identified the character of these “objectors” in Congress, including Johnson, Fitzgerald and Tiffany. He called them “pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”
Johnson, Fitzgerald and Tiffany are cowardly, and they represent a virulent strain of politics that is an existential threat to democracy. In its early days, it was sometimes carried in the bloodstream of the Tea Party movement. But it found its truest expression in the rise and fall of Donald Trump.
Johnson had the delusional obstinance to claim he and Trump bore no responsibility for the mob attack on the Capitol and Congress, which was spurred by their repeated lies and false claims about the election.
They stoked an insurrection against our government and its free and fair elections with the goal of keeping
Trump in power by illegitimate means. They violated their solemn oaths to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They incited an act of domestic terrorism.
The symbolism of the Confederate flag being carried into the Capitol building by seditionists should be lost on no one. An armed mob attacking the Capitol to stop Congress from enacting the decision of voters is our generation’s Fort Sumter.
It is the sort of thing that happens in fragile democracies around the world. We didn’t think it could happen in the United States, but now it has, and citizens must recognize this for what it is: A direct attack on our freedom by a leader who believes he should hold the power, not the people.
Underlying all of this is a tribal fury against people targeted as scapegoats — those easy to blame for what’s wrong in the world, who have darker skin, wear peculiar clothes, speak with faraway accents, celebrate different holidays — the unknown, the other, the them against us.
Trump, an amoral bully, understands this base instinct well. He has stoked this rage time and again to his advantage. He has baited his followers throughout his presidency with naked appeals to their worst racist tendencies.
From talking of the “very fine people” behind white supremacist violence in Charlottesville in 2017 to his call for the Proud Boys, a neo-Nazi group, to “stand back and stand by” during a debate with President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has emboldened an ugly vein of hate that has always lived just beneath the surface in American politics. As conservative columnist David Brooks wrote, “There are dark specters running through our nation — beasts with shaggy manes and feral teeth. They have the stench of Know-Nothingism, the hot blood of the lynchers, and they ride the winds of nihilistic fury.”
“The rampage reminded us,” Brooks continued, “that if Black people had done this, the hallways would be red with their blood.”
Instead, we saw mostly Black workers sweeping, mopping and repairing the damage in the Capitol after the mob was finally removed — cleaning up the mess left by Trump’s white rioters, many of whom wore shirts or carried flags and signs blaring their racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny.
Johnson, Fitzgerald, Tiffany and the rest have been Trump’s eager accomplices in this most shameful form of politics.
Incoming President Joe Biden has an enormous task before him. He spoke about that task — one we all share as Americans — during remarks from Wilmington, Del., as the Capitol was being overrun.
“The work of the moment, and the work of the next four years, must be the restoration of democracy, of decency, honor, respect, the rule of law, just plain, simple decency, the renewal of politics,” Biden said.
“But today’s reminder, a painful one, is that democracy is fragile, and to preserve it requires people of goodwill, leaders who have the courage to stand up, who are devoted not to the pursuit of power or their personal interests … but to the common good.”
That is exactly what we need — people of goodwill and leaders with the courage to stand up and do the right thing even when it’s politically risky.
We don’t need followers of the least informed and least responsible members of our society.
After the shock of Wednesday, Americans will hold their breath as the final days of Trump’s presidency ends in disgrace.
The terms of Johnson, Fitzgerald and Tiffany should all end with his.
To contact Johnson, Tiffany and Fitzgerald: Rep. Scott Fitzgerald: 202-2255101; Rep. Tom Tiffany: 202-225-3365; Sen. Ron Johnson: 202-224-5323
Editorials are the consensus opinion of members of the Editorial Board of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. The board operates independently of the network’s news reporters and editors. Email: jsedit@jrn.com