Anti-Democratic Democrats in the Tennessee State House Farce
The ostensible reason for AOC’s latest hysteria is that Republican members in the Tennessee State House voted to expel two Democrat Reps who had disrupted a House meeting with bullhorns to protest the failure, after the recent mass shooting in Nashville, to pass gun control measures.
Similarly, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) yelled, “This is fascism. … [E]xpelling your political opponents … is disgusting.” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said, “This is fascism, full stop.” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said that this is “straight-up fascism in its ugliest, most racist form. [T]here is no justification for ousting two legislators who were protesting … for their constituents.” VP Kamala Harris flew to Tennessee, not, of course, to visit the families of the victims of the shooting who had already served their purpose by being victimized by the shooter but to express her outrage at the expulsion of the two Democrats from the State House. The Huffington Post gushed praise for Harris’s “powerful message on Democracy”, etc.
The expelled Tennessee Democrats continue their anti-gun crusade. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this gets everything quite backwards. The expulsion of the two Democrats had nothing to do with Republican fascists. It had, ironically, to do with the fact that the two Democrats, mimicking fascist behaviour, had used bullhorns to disrupt the democratic process underway in the Tennessee State House because they didn’t get their way on gun legislation. They had not been expelled, as Summer Lee claimed, for “protesting … with their constituents”. They were expelled because they broke the rules and interfered with the democratic process with bullhorns. Got it Summer?
In an additional irony, the two Democrats were doing in the Tennessee State House the same thing the National Democrat Party has accused Trump of doing on Jan. 6th, 2021, namely interfering with an official government proceeding. It is no accident that the same Party, the Democrat’s, that interfere with the democratic process at the national level by weaponizing the legal system to damage the Republican front runner for president in 2024 is also abusing the normal democratic processes at the State House in Tennessee. Rep. Lee’s accusation of racism is similarly misguided.
The charge arises because of the three Democrats protesting in the Tennessee State House only the two black males were expelled from the House while the white woman was only censured. Naturally, following the usual script, this disparity was immediately used to claim that the white woman was not expelled because of her race. Needless to say, no evidence whatsoever, this being par for the course in the Democrat Party these days, was adduced for this incendiary causal claim. In fact, the real reason the white woman was not expelled is that she had behaved more moderately and not used a bullhorn. Case closed! This is the sort of thing that one used to expect a 7th grader to understand. The Huffington Post is, therefore, but again not surprisingly, wrong when it describes Kamala’s remarks as a “powerful message on democracy”. In fact, Kamala’s remarks were a pathetic attack on democracy.
One can easily verify this if Republicans ever use bullhorns to disrupt comrade Schumer’s recitation of his daily sermon in the Senate. The Democrats and their stenographers in what poses as the “news” media will suddenly grasp the apparently elusive truth that disrupting the democratic process with bullhorns is not serving democracy but is rather destroying it. Got it AOC, Summer, Rashida, Jim, Kamala, HuffPo. etc?
It may be worthwhile to rehearse the basic notion of the democratic process since one side of the aisle appears to have forgotten it. In a democratic process the different sides, perhaps Democrat and Republican or Labor and Conservative each articulate and defend their views in the relevant chamber, perhaps the House, the Senate or the Parliament, in accordance with the democratically established rules of debate. After the requisite time period for debate had passed the chamber votes on the various motions. The results of the vote must stand, at least for the time being, because that is the whole point of a democracy. That is how one avoids descent into violence. If one loses, one regroups and comes back again to fight another day. One does not call to “f—k” people, that being common at the 9th grade lunch table but unhelpful in the democratic process.
One does not use bullhorns to disrupt democratic processes because that resembles the un-democratic processes in a playpen rather than the democratic processes in a legislative chamber run by adults (if one can still find any). As a consequence, it becomes clear that the Democrat’s description of what took place in the “protest” against the inability to come up with gun-control legislation after the Nashville shooting was, in a phenomenon which has become all too familiar in our Orwellian age of “doublethink”, the very reverse of the truth. The behavior of the Democrat’s and their shills in the “news” media was an un-democratic attack on Democracy, not a defense of democracy.
Similarly, the alleged fascists in the Tennessee House were not fascists. The Republicans were the one’s actually following the democratic processes, that is, debating bills and voting on them. Do any Democrats remember how that is supposed to work? If anyone in this sorry tale resembles fascists it is the Democrats with their threats and bully tactics.
AOC, with her video of someone yelling to “f—k the fascists” and threatening her political opponents with “what’s coming” from the Gen Z generation is the sort of thing real fascists do. Although her threat to Republicans to “wait for what’s coming” does not explicitly threaten violenceit does at least threaten tit-for-tat behavior, e.g., you expel some of ours and we will retaliate somehow. However, AOC’s amplifying calls for her side to “f–k” presumably unwilling people on the other side of the aisle is amplifying a call to violence.
There is nothing particularly “democratic” about calling to “f—k” unwilling people even if the children eternally stuck in the 9th grade might think so. Further, calling people on the other side of the aisle who are simply going through the normal democratic processes “fascists,” like Rashida Talib, Jim McGovern and Summer Lee did, is the sort of bullying and intimidation that real fascists do to get their way. What the Democrat’s cannot win by fair argument they attempt to achieve by censoring and bullying. Most conservatives condemn unlawful behaviour by the mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. The only thing conservatives object to is the over-charging of some of them, as when Jacob Chansley was transparently overcharged by a politicized DOJ and had to be released early after Tucker released his videos.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Democrat Party and what passes for our “news” media does not condemn the thuggish behaviour on their own side of the aisle. They celebrate it, thereby admitting that they know they cannot win a fair debate.
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Great article. The constant comparison of the previously expelled Tennessee legislators with 9th graders having a snit brings the writer’s points to life. Also I appreciated the writer saying “get it” then listing the names Rashida, Kamala, Alexandria,etc. This type of writing personalized the article and gave me, the reader, a sense that I was in a real face-to-face confrontation with these Democrat Party miscreants. A truly well-reasoned and dynamically written article.