Another conspiracy theory, Kelli Ward?
Remember when Kelli Ward and the Arizona Republican Party she chairs asked if people were willing to die for President Donald Trump?
On Wednesday, Ward got her answer.
Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from California, was part of the Trump mob that stormed the nation’s Capitol. She was shot and killed as she moved to climb through a broken window into an area where members of Congress were sheltering.
Babbitt had wrapped herself in a Make America Great Again flag.
She is one of five people who died as a result of the riot, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, Brian D. Sicknick, who died Thursday evening of injuries suffered while engaging with some of the “patriots” who stormed the Capitol.
I wonder if Ward will be attending Babbitt’s funeral or Officer Sicknick’s?
Here’s another thing I wonder. Are Arizona’s Republican leaders – the ones who are now tripping all over themselves to condemn Wednesday’s riot – ready to back up their condemnation of Wednesday’s violent insurrection with action?
It’s painfully clear that the Party of Trump needs a makeover. But how does that happen when the chairperson of the state party is still in fullblown all-out MAGA battle mode? Still spreading conspiracies, still reinforcing the stink.
For two months, this mighty MAGA general has been feeding Republican voters lie after lie about Trump’s loss. She’s pushed various nefarious (and baseless) conspiracy theories about how the election was fixed for Joe Biden. She’s refused to accept the rulings of judge after judge who found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Day after day, she has implored Republicans to “stop the steal” — to “take back our country from the extreme radical Democrats (i.e. Socialists) who are seeking to take away our freedom, eliminate our rights and thwart the will of the American people.”
To die, even, for Donald Trump. Tragically, someone did and another died because of him.
Now, instead of stepping back, taking a breath and maybe even reconsidering her descent into kooksville, Ward has come up with yet another conspiracy theory.
This one, about the day the Capitol got trashed.
According to Ward, President Trump gave “an amazing speech” to “patriots” on Wednesday, one that had absolutely nothing to do with the eruption of violence and the rioting that followed.
Not even when he riled up the mob — when he said, “We will never give up. We will never concede. It will never
happen. You don’t concede when there’s death involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore.”
Not even when he sent them on their way down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, saying “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
Yeah, totally amazing speech, but according to Ward, what happened next was not his fault.
“Barbarians stormed the gates,” Ward said, in a video posted to Twitter on Thursday. “And my opinion I think that some of those were agitators that were brought in. Now whether they were antifa or BLM or just outright anarchists, I don’t know. But unfortunately, there were some foolish Trump supporters and MAGA supporters who followed right along like they were sheep.” In other words, here we go again. It seems well-meaning MAGA folk, having been doused with rhetorical gasoline and set ablaze by the president, couldn’t possibly have swarmed the Capitol. No. It wasn’t Republicans scaling the walls and busting through doors and windows in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the next president.
It wasn’t Republicans carrying a Confederate flag through the hallowed halls of the People’s House or taking down an American flag outside the Capitol and waving a Trump flag in its place.
No, Ward says it had to be antifa barbarians, leading patriots astray.
It’s worth pointing out, here on Planet Earth, that there is no evidence that antifa, Black Lives Matter or “outright anarchists” were the ones storming the
Capitol on Wednesday.
Republicans own this now-infamous act of sedition that will stain our history books. Donald Trump owns it. And shameless self promoters like Kelli Ward who have spent months – years, really, priming the base for the anger that erupted on Wednesday – own it.
Ward, whose biggest worry on Thursday seemed not to be where the party goes from here but why Republicans would even consider abandoning Dear Leader.
“Republican officials turning their back on the president,” Ward said, in her video. “It’s very sad and we have to do something about it.”
Did I mention that Ward is running for another two-year term as the head of Arizona’s Republican Party?