Silence About Violence

By Zamboni

This weekend, the Texas Republican Party convened in Houston, and take it from us, you don't want to know.

They backed a party platform that would take America back to the 1850s, never mind the 1950s — including the possibility of secession (we cats say, go for it, kiddos). As if that weren't bad enough, they got super-rowdy. Worse than rowdy, actually. They booed John Cornyn for even participating in Congressional negotiations on guns. But that was positively sedate compared to the in-your-face confrontations they had with Dan Crenshaw and Ted Cruz.

Such behavior is not confined to Texas. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a member of the January 6 committee, has received alarming new death threats against himself and his family. And in Upstate New York today, we cats saw an SUV with multiple right-wing bumper stickers and a huge sign in the back window that said: "Proud White American." The fact that the driver made an illegal and dangerous left turn, as if he felt angry and entitled, did not surprise us in the least.

So, where are all the Republican condemnations of all this? Sadly, it's crickets. The national GOP — including our own Congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, who has gone from self-styled across-the-aisle "reasonableness" to full-bore Trumpster — knows that Donald Trump gave these cretins permission to openly be their own worst selves. And they're just trying to ride out the consequences.

They might not succeed. "There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you," Kinzinger said today. "And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently." We cats HISS.

(IMAGE: This wasn't the car we saw. But it isn't far off.)