What did Paul Gosar learn on Wednesday?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Wednesday, 223-207-1, to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, Q-Arizona, and remove him from his committees.
In an embarrassing vote we’ll never forget, Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, voted “present.”
You can read House Resolution 789 here.
Earlier this month, white nationalist Gosar posted on social media an altered anime video that showed him attacking Pres. Biden, and slashing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) with a sword. You can listen to what she said at his hearing on Wednesday here.
I’ll echo her here: What is so hard about saying this is wrong?
(What did we learn on Wednesday? We learned that we shouldn’t bother asking AOC’s question of GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who was notoriously silent after the video was posted. On Wednesday, McCarthy defended Gosar’s actions from the floor. We pause a moment as we bid Kevin’s backbone — never all that evident, anyway — as it exits the stage.)
In a move that surprised no one, Gosar did not apologize. He said, instead, that the video was meant to illustrate the “threat posed to our country by immigration.” He also compared himself to Alexander Hamilton. Try following that line of logic, and you’ll get a nose bleed. His family members, never a fan, expressed concern about their sibling’s mental health.
Here are some committees that in the place of Gosar will now host an empty chair, which might actually be better for his Arizona constituents. He joins similarly ethically-morally-challenged Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Georgia) out in the hallway.
Only two Republicans — Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney — voted with the Democrats on Wednesday. Sigh. I will believe in the Republican Party again once the likes of McCarthy, Gosar and Greene (and Boebart and Gaetz, the list grows) are primaried and defeated. Until then? DTM.*
*Dead To Me
The attractions of radicalized misogynistic violence to the young White males who are his meat and drink, and of his attempt to exploit that attraction.
One of your links included the video, which I hadn't seen before (I couldn't justify spending any time looking through Gosar's Twitter feed--life is too short). The anime seems a strange choice of source content, but maybe it really says something about him: he is a very small man compared to the "giants" in the clip. (Perhaps that indicates what his staff really thinks of him?) And his comparing himself to Alexander Hamilton makes me wonder what he and the members of his party who defend him would think if someone posted a video depicting Gosar as Hamilton as he was shot in the duel. Would that be viewed as threatening?