The Republican National Committee on Friday passed a resolution censuring Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for participating in the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots.
While the resolution censuring the two Republicans had been widely reported, the actual text of the resolution still managed to shock many journalists.
Specifically, the resolution accused Cheney and Kinzinger of participating in the "persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."
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The sentence sickened MSNBC host Chris Hayes, who wrote on Twitter that "the RNC resolution is actually considerably worse and more debased than I had anticipated."
The New Republic's Matt Ford was similarly dumbstruck by the text of the resolution.
"Nothing insightful or clever to add here, just that we're in an incredibly dark place and it's going to get worse," he wrote.
Writing in response to Ford's comments, Daily Beast reporter Asawin Suebsaeng argued that it should sadly be no surprise that this is where the GOP has wound up.
"I THINK the speed at which the party started substantively crawling back to Trump, post-riot, was even swifter than they did post-Access Hollywood and post-Charlottesville," he wrote. "It was even faster than the speed the party came crawling back to Roy Moore, after… you know."
NBC News' Ryan Reilly, meanwhile, noted the extraordinary timing of the RNC's statement.
"Less than an hour after the RNC passed a resolution saying 'ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse' were being persecuted, a court hearing is underway for a Jan. 6 defendant who pepper sprayed cops in the face while clad in MAGA gear," he wrote.
And CQ Roll Call's John Donnelly said that this kind of resolution was simply unprecedented.
"I never thought I'd see a major American political party calling a violent attack on our national legislature ‘legitimate political discourse’ and censuring lawmakers who tell the truth about," he wrote. "This dwarfs all our other problems."
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