One America Network (OAN), an ultra-far right media outlet that peddles pro-Trump election conspiracies, and is a sponsor of the Arizona GOP’s sham “audit” of Democratic-leaning Maricopa County’s 2020 ballots, says the “people responsible for overthrowing the election” should be “executed.” (Read story here.)
The election wasn’t “overthrown,” and this appears to target honest election officials and suggest they be lynched by pro-Trump vigilante mobs for doing their jobs according to our election laws.
The First Amendment, which protects free speech and free press, allows OAN and its employees to do that.
Pearson Sharp, the OAN figure who said this on the air, isn’t breaking any laws to encouraging his listeners to murder public officials. Any of his listeners who try to do that, though, can be charged with crimes that could put them away for many years — and neither Sharp nor Robert Herring, the businessman who owns OAN, will pay their legal defense bills. Anybody who takes their advice is on his own.
As for Sharp (photo, left), who calls himself a “journalist,” he’s no more a journalist than Josef Goebbels was. He’s a hate-filled, lying rabble-rouser, and since he calls Democrats “traitors,” why couldn’t they call him a “Nazi”?
What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.
Both sides are engaged in rhetoric; some is reprehensible, but it is political rhetoric and is Constitutionally protected. Now if a specific public official is actually threatened, and they believe the threat is credible and feel threatened then they may go to the local police, state police, or the FBI or all three. They may also begin a civil process(they may get told by all three Law Enforcement agencies that is the course open to them). This s not the first time in American history that the animosity is clear, such animosity led to Americans telling the crown we are independent, and a civil war. Often such rhetoric has led eventually to some sort of compromise such as the Missouri Compromise.
I think the prevention of speech is far more concerning. Yes telling someone they deserve a boot up their ass is rather violent, but maybe they need to hear it, or their side needs to hear that. I do know that when political overthrows occur it is not unusual opponents are executed or imprisoned. I don’t the United is any way vaccinated against such an event. It could happen here, but our Constitutional system while delicate is designed to prevent such an event. Of course it us people who ultimately decide whether the experiment continues or dies.
As Pogo said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Give me a break. Democrats don’t threaten to kill Republicans or public officials, nor do they parade with guns in public buildings or try to overthrow elections. Republicans, and Trump supporters in particular, have become synonymous with bad behavior. The fact his speech is constitutionally protected doesn’t make it right. With freedom comes responsibility, and this is extremely irresponsible.