Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:47 pm
It began when The Hill‘s Lydia Wheeler announced that Code Pink protesters had arrived at the Sessions hearing:
Protestors from Code Pink arrive at #Sessions hearing. pic.twitter.com/Ojxu4xjiZU
— Lydia Wheeler (@WheelerLydia) January 10, 2017
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When a woman from Code Pink heckled claims that Jeff Sessions had a praiseworthy civil rights record she was ejected from the hearing, but of course, silencing a single voice is never enough for autocrats.
Their mere presence was too much for Trumpists and caused Trump Transition Team Communications Director Jason Miller to make like Trump with a knee-jerk and over-the-top response reminiscent of Meghan McCain’s response to Meryl Streep the other day:
Why Democrats lost 👇 https://t.co/WDWbZRhoP8
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) January 10, 2017
There seem to be a lot of reasons Democrats lost the election, all of them having mysteriously to do with speaking out according to their First Amendment rights. If true, this tells you a great deal more about Republicans than it does Democrats.
At any rate, this caused incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who has previously whined that people aren’t being respectful of Trump, to up the ante, if possible, by blaming Sen. Chuck Schumer and Democrats for people being unhappy with Donald Trump, showing once again that however much Republicans embraced “dissent” while Obama was president, such things are absolutely not to be permitted under President Trump:
.@TheDemocrats and @SenSchumer must denounce these tactics from their side ASAP https://t.co/gH2J8kC33W
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) January 10, 2017
Republicans immediately claimed it was suspicious that Code Pink mysteriously resurfaced “after eight years,” conveniently forgetting that President Obama was interrupted by a Code Pink heckler in 2013, and rather than rant and whine about it, turned the occasion into an opportunity to make a point about the need to close GITMO.
Republicans don’t react well to people standing up to them, however, and this is truer than ever now that Trump is set to enter the Oval Office. And this isn’t just about Code Pink. What Republicans really want is an end to dissent, to not only delegitimize critics but to actually prevent them from speaking.
What Trump and his cronies don’t realize is that Democrats don’t have to coordinate and orchestrate opposition to Donald Trump. This is happening on its own, at a grass roots level, all across the nation. Blaming Democrats because Trump’s deplorable behavior arouses opposition is ridiculous.
Jeff Sessions is hopelessly compromised by his history of racism and should not hold any cabinet position, let alone that of the attorney general of the United States. If Trump and his defenders don’t want people to criticize Trump, they should encourage the president-elect to make better decisions.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
