GOP offers tepid response to riots

THE NM Republican Party’s response to the Trumpinspired riots at our Capitol (last) week was condescendingly tepid. Chairman (Steve) Pearce chose to share with us that “… such violence and threatening actions cannot be tolerated.”

Fine. However, a fully honest response would have to include holding a light up to the role President Trump played in this drama. We have seen him nurture his base on a steady diet of hostility, discord and animus for the past four years.

Because his party has never held him accountable, he has freely spread his poison. If Republicans do not hold him accountable now, he will continue to subvert our democracy.

The riots did not occur in a vacuum, they occurred in the space left open by the absence of Republican Party leadership. FRANCIS CAMMIE HARDING

Albuquerque