ICYMI: AZ GOP House Speaker Rusty Bowers Says Party Has “Lost Its Mind”

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WASHINGTON — Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers slammed his Republican colleagues in an interview with The Guardian, citing the party’s lurch toward fascism. At every level of the ballot, Republicans who refuse to go along with Trump’s “Big Lie” are being punished with threats and electoral losses, highlighting the extremism that has consumed their party. Earlier this month, Speaker Bowers decisively lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate over Bowers’ refusal to overturn the votes of Arizonans. “The constitution is hanging by a thread,” Bowers warned. “The funny thing is, I always thought it would be the other guys. And it’s my side. That just rips at my heart: that we would be the people who would surrender the constitution in order to win an election.” 

“The sitting House speaker in Arizona confirmed what we’ve all witnessed — the GOP is descending into fascism, attacking our constitution and becoming increasingly comfortable using intimidation and violence to achieve their goals,” said DLCC President Jessica Post. “Speaker Rusty Bowers did the absolute bare minimum by upholding his constitutional responsibilities as a legislator, and his reward was his political career being derailed and armed protestors outside his house smearing him as a pedophile. After enabling extremism for years, the GOP has been overtaken by their most extreme faction.” 

The Guardian: Ousted Republican reflects on Trump, democracy and America: ‘The place has lost its mind’:

“… He spoke his mind too about the very real danger facing democracy in America today – to his astonishment, at the hands of his own party.

“The constitution is hanging by a thread,” he told me. “The funny thing is, I always thought it would be the other guys. And it’s my side. That just rips at my heart: that we would be the people who would surrender the constitution in order to win an election. That just blows my mind.”…

[BOWERS] had declined to use his power as leader of the house to invoke an ‘arcane Arizonan law’ – whose text has never been found – that would allow the legislature to cast out the will of 3.4 million voters who had handed victory to Joe Biden and switch the outcome unilaterally to Trump.

Bowers has a word for that kind of thinking. ‘The thought that if you don’t do what we like, then we will just get rid of you and march on and do it ourselves – that to me is fascism.’ …

But for now, he accepts that things are likely to get much worse before they get better. I ask him, at this moment, is the Republican party in Arizona lost?

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘they’ve invented a new way. It’s a party that doesn’t have any thought. It’s all emotional, it’s all revenge. It’s all anger. That’s all it is.’ …

He held the thumb and digit finger of his right hand so close together that they were almost touching. ‘The veneer of civilization is this thin,’ he said. ‘It still exists – I haven’t been hanged yet. But holy moly, this is just crazy. The place has lost its mind.’”

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