Threats

None of this is normal or ok.

Trump’s legacy is armed and dangerous people in Congress.

Over the past couple of weeks, Republicans have been having temper tantrums about new safety protocols that have been put in place in the US Capitol following the deadly 6 January insurrection. Lawmakers are now supposed to walk through metal detectors to enter the chamber and vote but a number of Republicans have been ignoring the rules. “You can’t stop me,” Louie Gohmert, a Texas congressman, reportedly sneered at Capitol police, as he shamelessly skirted a metal detector…

…“Nah, I’m not going to do that,” the Georgia congressman Rick Allen reportedly told officers who attempted to scan him after he set off the machine. Similarly, the newly elected congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who tweeted earlier this year that she was going to carry a loaded Glock handgun to Congress, refused to have her bag searched. Congressman Andy Harris, meanwhile, did consent to a search on Thursday afternoon: a concealed weapon was found in his suit coat.

Nobody should have to go to work every day wondering whether one of their colleagues is going to kill them. And yet, that’s precisely what some Democrats – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the Squad, in particular – are having to do. The Squad are a favourite target of rightwingers; they’ve had reason to worry about their safety long before the Capitol riots. Last year, for example, the QAnon supporter and new congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an image on Facebook of her holding an assault rifle alongside Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. “We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart,” her post’s caption read.

She actually did.

In the Thursday post, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the GOP nominee in Georgia’s heavily Republican 14th District, wears sunglasses and stands with a gun next to photos of Tlaib and U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, and Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota. Text below the image says “Squad’s Worst Nightmare!”

“We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country party,” Greene’s Facebook post added. “Americans must take our country back.”

Georgia Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a gun-toting image on her campaign Facebook page on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020, about "squad" members and U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York; and Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota

Greene is now in Congress.

None of this is normal or acceptable.

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