Democrats must ‘put Republicans on the defensive’ before GOP raises a militia for 2024 election: report

The Republican Party's embrace of political violence could result in violence in future elections unless Democrats stand up now to stop Donald Trump's efforts to legitimize overturning elections.

"The Republican Party is ever closer to the destination to which it has long been headed under former President Donald Trump -- the legitimization of violence as a form of political expression," CNN's Stephen Collinson reported. "And a Republican triumph in midterm elections in November could seat a House majority dominated by Trump's henchmen and women and give his extremism a new lease on power in the run up to the 2024 presidential contest."

Michael Tomasky, editor at The New Republic, also feared political violence by Republicans.

"It’s now official: The Republican Party is no longer a political party in any known American sense. Honestly, it hasn’t been for a quite some time, but with last week’s resolution condemning Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), the party made it official," he wrote. "The bottom line is this: With this resolution, the Republican Party has officially placed itself on the side of political violence. [Ronna Romney] McDaniel and the rest will deny it, but it’s true; and in fact the more vociferously they deny it, the more they’re merely confirming it. Now, we’re one step closer to, for example, to the party mounting its own armed militia in time for the 2024 elections. It will not be called that officially of course. They know better than that. But that’s what it will be. And that explicitly is fascism."

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Tomasky noted the GOP began as an anti-slavery party.

"And now, in the Trump era, it has become what it’s been in process of becoming for some time: an extremist, pro-violence party. The Anti-Defamation League recently released a report finding that more than 100 Republican candidates on various ballots in 2022 have explicitly embraced extremism or violence—House candidates boasting about having the backing of white supremacist leaders, at least 45 candidates giving credence to QAnon conspiracy theories," he wrote.

He concluded it is time for Democrats to act.

"The Republican Party is further down the road to fascism than the Democrats are to socialism. And when, by the way, might Democrats start saying that? What are you waiting for, people? How much deeper does this crisis have to get before you start telling the American people the truth about what the GOP has become? It’s time to say it, and to put Republicans on the defensive," Tomasky urged. "I happen to think it will be good politically, because it will show people that you have conviction. But even if it weren’t, we are at a moment of historical reckoning. This resolution is a dark pivot point. But Americans won’t know it, Democrats, unless you tell them."