Rachel Maddow explained that right-wing violence has expanded to include threats against the National Archives, the FBI, the IRS, and elected officials like Sen. Mitt Romney. She said that Trump’s “overheated public statements” have led his followers to commit or threaten violence on his behalf.
Maddow listed examples of recent threats, including those against Fulton County officials, the sheriff of Fulton County, the FBI, a judge in a Trump case, grand jurors in a Trump case, and prosecutors in two Trump cases. She also mentioned a federal prosecutor in the Hunter Biden investigation who received “such a barrage of credible threats that she had to seek security help from the U.S. Marshals Service.” She went on to say that public health workers and the head of the CDC have also received death threats.
Maddow also cited a new biography about Romney that reveals that a number of GOP colleagues were willing to vote to convict Trump of impeachment, but they were too scared of what might happen to themselves or their families. She said that if threats of violence suffocate public life, public service, and even regular citizen participation in regular politics, then normal people will steer clear of politics and public service.
“If public life, public service, and even just regular citizen participation in regular politics is suffocated with threats of violence now, one of the things that for sure does is it forces regular people out of politics and out of public service,” she said. “It is common sense, if politics and public service are being made into something that is quite literally dangerous, then in the normal course of events, normal people will steer clear. Right?”
See her full comments below or at the link here.
