Guilt by association: Idaho Republicans need to disavow the ‘Putin wing of the GOP’
At the beginning of the America First Political Action Conference over the weekend, organizer Nick Fuentes led a cheer for Russia — “Can we give a round of applause for Russia?” — spurring the audience to start chanting, “Putin, Putin, Putin.”
This is the conference at which Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin gave a video presentation.
As if reading from the same defense playbook, she and another conference speaker, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, somehow blamed the media for making connections between them and the conference led by a white nationalist, antisemitic organizer who also, apparently, supports Russia.
“The media wants us to play a guilt-by-association game where conservatives (and only conservatives) are accused of believing everything ever said by anyone with whom they share a stage,” McGeachin tweeted. “Don’t tell me what I believe. Listen to my words.”
“I am not going to play the guilt-by-association game in which you demand every conservative should justify anything ever said by anyone they’ve ever shared a room with,” Taylor Greene tweeted. “I’m not going to be drawn into that. I’m only responsible for what I say. So ask me about my speech.”
The bizarre, burgeoning right-wing support for Vladimir Putin caused U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, already ostracized by her party for supporting an investigation into the Jan. 6 riot by Donald Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol, to tweet:
“As Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep Paul Gosar speak at this white supremacist, anti-Semitic, pro-Putin event, silence by Republican Party leaders is deafening and enabling. All Americans should renounce this garbage and reject the Putin wing of the GOP now.”
Might this finally be the breaking point for Republicans like U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, who have sat quietly by during the Trump era, enduring the quid pro quo that the former president demanded of Ukraine in exchange for dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden by withholding military aid?
They held their tongues during the Helsinki speech in which Trump took the side of Putin over the U.S. intelligence community when Trump diverted congressionally-approved funds from the military to build the border wall, and during Trump’s desperate attempt to hold on to office by claiming the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
They stayed silent as they watched the end result of those claims, the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, into which they voted against an investigation.
Crapo, to his credit, quickly denounced Putin and the Russian invasion. But what about the far-right Republicans who are supporting Putin? Where is a statement against them, similar to what Sen. Mitt Romney did Sunday when he called the behavior of these Americans “almost treasonous” and said “it just makes me ill to see some of these people do that”?
Are Republicans now faced with the prospect of being pushed into supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or risk losing the votes of the lunatic fringe of the party? Is this what some Republicans have to do in order to stave off a primary challenge from a fringe Trump supporter?
It’s way past time for reasonable Republicans to take back their party, disavow these extremists and distance themselves from the “Putin wing of the GOP,” who are trying to take over.
If you lose the votes of those people and you lose your precious seat in Congress, so be it.
At least your grandchildren will know that you were on the right side of history. And that you weren’t on the same team as the bad guys.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 4:00 AM.