Democrats are scrambling to cobble together a case for why they should be reelected and maintain control in the House less than five months before the midterms, and one progressive member of the House is raising eyebrows for the explanation he made as to why Democrats should be elected in November.
Unsurprisingly, Democrats don't have much of a case to make ahead of the midterms. Their majorities in Congress and Biden in the White House have ushered in inflation at 40-year highs, gas prices doubling in less than 16 months to set records beyond $5 per gallon, an open border, a crime crisis, and international embarrassments. So, when two thirds of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, what case is left for Democrats to make? Vote for us or there will be civil war. Hoo-boy.
Joining MSNBC's The Cross Connection with Tiffany Cross over the weekend, Bowman — who is a member of The Squad(TM) — explained what Americans can expect if Republicans pick up seats and retake Congress this November:
The January 6 commission would cease to exist, the findings will be completely suppressed and will not be admitted into any further investigations while the GOP will be in power. They would impeach president Biden as quickly as possible and they will continue to find ways to impeach him going forward. It would also embolden Republicans and the far-right and white nationalists across the country to begin to believe that it is their time to not just take power in the House but the Senate the White House and state houses across the country.
And We've got to understand that this is a group that has been radicalized by the great replacement myth and many other things and have been pushing for violence and pushing for even civil war. So that is what's at stake right now in terms of this election.
So, according to Rep. Bowman, Civil war is coming if Republicans win in November. Subtle.
First, who cares what happens to the findings of the January 6 select committee set up by Nancy Pelosi. It's a partisan attack that lacks credibility outside of the tear-filled eyes of redistricted-out-of-office Adam Kinzinger. The real questions about why the Capitol was not secured and why Capitol officers were not equipped that day will go unanswered and the people already being prosecuted under the law won't be any more or less guilty because of what the committee claims to conclude. Americans are so far beyond January 6 that anyone not named Nicolle Wallace is unlikely to notice if the committee goes the way of Hillary Clinton's 33,000 missing emails.
Second, shoutout to Bowman for giving Republicans their first order of business once taking office: impeaching Biden. There's a menu of charges the GOP could choose from and, based on the new rules set by Democrats during the previous administration, a House majority need not have any reason to launch an impeachment beyond "we don't like the president."
Third, the mainstream media and elected Democrats' concern about political violence rings a bit hollow in the wake of yet another assassination attempt against a conservative — this time Justice Brett Kavanaugh — an incident that buried below the fold of supposed newspapers of record and went unmentioned on all but Fox's Sunday show. And this nonsense about conservatives and the GOP being the driving force behind "replacement theory" is just partisan hype. Ben Shapiro's recent column here at Townhall explains why the attempt to conflate conservatives with racist ideology is "poisonous politics, and it happens to be a lie."
And finally, the looming civil war that Bowman threatened if Republicans take back the House in the midterms is just...no. It was radical leftists who laid siege to American cities destroying lives, homes, and businesses, and it was the Democrats — including President Biden — who treated entire swaths of the country as the enemy for choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Whether or not our national fabric remains in tact or the center holds, a la Joan Didion, it won't be dependent upon Republicans retaking the House from failed and feckless Democrats.
Bowman's depiction of those who vote for Republican candidates also paints them all as racist bigots, and not as they truly are: Americans fed up with runaway inflation trying to make ends meet, who want their neighborhoods and country to be safe from lawless individuals, and who are looking to install a check on President Biden's power and agenda that's not succeeded at building back better.