Arkansas GOP Newsletter Calls For Shooting Their Own Republicans

Last updated on April 24th, 2013 at 01:13 pm

The Benton County (Arkansas) Republican newsletter contained a call for Republican legislators who voted to expand Obamacare in the state to be shot.

Chris Nogy, the husband of the county Republican Party secretary, was so upset at Republican state legislators that he called for them to be shot in the county party newsletter.

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Nogy wrote,

Part of me feels that this betrayal deserves a quick implementation of my 2nd amendment rights to remove a threat domestic. Because no matter how much one group says it is inevitable to start down the road to socialism it isn’t as long as we use our creativity and energy to creating solutions that don’t take us that way. And it is NEVER wrong to simply stand up against an option, even though the other existing options may not be optimal either, especially when there is still time. And 2015 would have been time, especially if we had simply passed legislation that said “Arkansas will NOT be forced into implementation of Obamacare or any socialized health care or Medicaid reform at least until the end of the 2015 legislative session.” Not even an outright nullification, just buying time.

I don’t feel the same way about the Democrats as bullet backstops as I do about the Republicans who joined them. The Democrats were doing what their party told them they had to do because they were elected to do that job. We wailed and cried and threw up our hands every time the Democrat socialist Governor driven Senate and House rammed through things that we knew were dangerous, but that was the fact of the elections. Make no mistake, Arkansas is no less Democrat than it was before, it is just a lot less Obama, and we as Republicans had only one chance. That chance was to keep Obamacare from being implemented. The Democrat citizens were willing to stomach a few pro-life and pro-gun laws for us successfully keeping Obamacare out of the state, and we could have maintained our favorable status by doing just that. But now the Dems are furious because they get pro-life, pro-gun, and Obamacare under our majority, the Republicans are furious because they get Obamacare because of their own, we will NOT win in 2014, and our hope of making things better evaporated with the vote of a handful of last-minute turncoats.

So what was this bit of horrible “socialism” that Mr. Nogy was willing to shoot his fellow Republicans over?

Nogy was outraged because the Arkansas House voted to use privatize their Medicaid expansion, and use the Obamacare health insurance exchanges to expand medical services to the state’s poor.

Nogy was enraged by the use of that well known socialist mechanism, the free market.

It is one thing to be upset about a vote, but to call for state legislators of your own party to be used as “bullet backstops” shows how far off the cliff many on the right have fallen. When they threaten violence over the use of the free market, there is really is nowhere to go from there.

Elected Republican officials really are terrified of the base of their own party, and threats such as these are exactly why. This type of behavior is also why it is impossible for Democrats and Republicans to come together on anything.

The Benton County Republican Committee has condemned the letter, but the damage has already been done.

Republicans are literally governing with threats of guns to their heads. The Republican Party isn’t just broken. Stories like this one suggest that many rank and file Republicans have been driven to the point of mental illness by their insular drumbeat of extremism.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association