A Brief Comment on the RNC Resolution

 

I am actually inclined to give Ronna Romney McDaniel the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe her resolution to censure Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for "persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse" really was not meant to include the January 6 insurrection, but only to “ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.”*  But let there be no mistake.  If that is what McDaniel meant, then she was saying that disputing whether to accept the outcome of an election is "legitimate political discourse," and that any attempt to overcome the outcome that stops short of violence is ordinary partisan politics.

To that only one answer can be acceptable.  The question of whether to accept the result of an election is not "legitimate political discourse" or ordinary partisan politics, but foundational to our very system of elective government.  If the loser of elections does not accept the outcome and resorts to every means short of violence to overturn the outcome, then the downfall of our system may not be as dramatic as a violent revolt, but it is no less certain.

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*On the other hand, one can also argue that if that was what the censure meant, it should have said so.