Self-quarantined Republican jokes about deliberately infecting Supreme Justice Ginsburg with virus
The double standards and hypocrisy of the Republican party would be laughable if they weren’t so damaging and infuriating.
Just last week, Donald Trump was attacking Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for saying at a pro-choice rally that Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch “will pay the price” if they vote to repeal Roe v. Wade.
This is a direct & dangerous threat to the U.S. Supreme Court by Schumer. If a Republican did this, he or she would be arrested, or impeached. Serious action MUST be taken NOW! https://t.co/WqQUbyzaJU
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2020
Schumer later clarified his remarks to indicate that he was referring to the political price that the GOP would pay at the ballot box, not any sort of personal attack on the SCOTUS members, and the president’s hypocritical pearl-clutching over the senator’s comments came shortly after he himself went on a tirade against Justice Sonia Sotomayor demanding that she recuse herself from any cases involving his administration, as if the constitutional separation of powers was a mere suggestion rather than a guiding principle of our democracy.
By Donald Trump’s standards, however, Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) should currently be in irons rather than merely in self-quarantine after exposure to someone infected with the COVID-19 virus at CPAC after he tweeted a sick joke that could also be interpreted as a threat against a Supreme Court justice.
On Monday evening, Gosar sent a tweet reacting to something he heard on a right-wing talk radio show.
Fact check: there is no truth to the rumor that @SenTedCruz and I asked for a joint meeting with Justice Ginsburg. @ChrisPlanteShow Good one. #thatsnotnice
— Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) March 11, 2020
With Senator Cruz also in self-quarantine for the same reason as Representative Gosar, the implication that he would purposely try to infect the 86-year-old liberal Supreme Court Justice with a virus with a particularly high fatality rate among those over 70 is not a “good one” but an offensive partisan jest designed to elicit chuckles among GOP ghouls lusting for another Supreme Court seat to hand Trump to fill from the Federalist Society’s list of approved reactionaries.
As Morrissey once sang, that joke isn’t funny anymore.
The fact that not a single member of the Republican party has made the rounds of cable news outlets to condemn Congressman Gosar’s offensive quip as multiple GOP legislators did to condemn Schumer’s words is a telling sign that morals and values are a one-way street for the party of political opportunism.
Whatever standards they apply to the words and behavior of Democrats simply don’t apply to members of their own political clan who are free to say the most heinous things about those opposed to their cruel agenda.
Perhaps the best way to respond to this type of hypocrisy is to follow the advice of Senator Schumer and make sure that the Republicans “pay the price” at the ballot box in November and are swept away by an enormous “blue wave.”
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Original reporting by Josh Israel at The American Independent.
