PRESS RELEASE
The Greene County Democratic Party abhors the actions and events that occurred on January 06 and calls on the Republican Party to condemn those involved and to call for the resignation of President Trump. President Trump and his Republican Party are now guilty of encouraging violence at our Capitol. President Trump encouraged his followers to come to DC on Jan 6 and that it would “be wild.” During the days that he encouraged his followers to come to DC for a “wild” day – the very day that our Congress would be counting electoral votes and confirming the will of the people, the Republican Party remained silent. The Republican Party’s silence on this topic was implied support. During the day of January 06, President Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., and Rudy Guiliani continued to lie to the assembled crowd of thousands, continued to speak conspiracy theories, and encourage the crowd to go to the Capitol. Guiliani used the word “combat” in his speech. The result was an incident of insurrection. An insurrection is a violent uprising against a government and that clearly is what was encouraged and that is clearly what happened. These actions cannot remain unaddressed.
Meanwhile, in the Capitol building, at the joint session of Congress, Republicans were busy trying to subvert the results of the most secure election in the history of the United States by trying to reject certain States certified electoral results. About 100 Republican Representatives and several Senators rose to try and deny the votes of the citizens. An attempt to disenfranchise millions. The disenfranchisement attempt was directed at those states where large votes from people of color made a decisive impact on the election. As the Republicans have not supported reauthorizing the Voting Right Act and have engaged in actions across multiple states to remove people of color from voting lists, close voting election locations in areas where people of color are the dominant voters, and pass voter ID laws – these shameful actions are not surprising.
Our Capitol was overrun by seditionists and the Republican Party cannot be held blameless. The Republican Party cannot be allowed to claim thoughts and prayers as their response. The Republican Party must call upon President Trump to resign, tell the truth to their Party members, and stop spreading conspiracy theories. Finally, continuing to display Trump flags in any form is supportive of lies that are harming our United States. The Republican Party needs to call on its members to remove the Trump flags as Trump has clearly been guilty of seditionist behavior.
