Fmr GOP Strategist: This Un-Democratic Moment in the Republican Party ‘Must Be Crushed’

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Janet Ybarra
Democrat
Former Washington Journalist
Contributor on The Bipartisan Press

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Before there can be talk about unity for what divides the United States, there must be justice for the violent, authoritarian movement within the Republican Party responsible for the deadly terrorist attack on the US Capitol.

That’s according to Steve Schmidt, a top former Republican strategist and current leader of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.

More information about the violent seditionist and insurrectionist January 6 rampage of the Capitol building — and its plotters — continues to spill out.

The attack was an ultimately futile attempt by Donald Trump’s violent supporters to try to overturn the lawful results of the November elections and try to keep Trump in the White House.

Law enforcement across the country continue to make arrests, even as evidence emerges that more alt-Right violence is imminent in coming days.

“We have a fascistic enterprise alive and well in America. We have an autocratic movement that’s supported by 42 percent. And before we talk about reconciliation, we must talk about accountability,” said Schmidt, who once worked on high-level Republican campaigns. “We must talk about justice. And we must talk about the punishment for the violence done to the government of the United States.

“There are only two ways to win a fight. You can bring your opponent to submission or your opponent can bring you to exhaustion,” added Schmidt, who famously crossed over to support President-elect Biden in the presidential election. “When you think about losing a fight through exhaustion, you think about the United States and Iraq or Afghanistan or in Vietnam. When you think about submission, you think about what happened to the South in the Civil War, you think about Germany and Japan. And so our offer on the table for the seditionists is a fight where we will bring you to submission. This must be crushed. This must be annihilated. This un-liberalism, this un-democratic moment must be met head-on. The democracy side of the debate cannot be the gentle side.”