Reaction to Capitol violence highlights GOP schism
Mass. Republicans dispute whether to blame Trump
ANTHONY AMORE felt physically ill on Wednesday as he saw mobs of President Trump’s supporters violently breaching the US Capitol. “I felt sick to my stomach in a literal sense,” Amore said.
Amore, a security expert and former Republican candidate for secretary of state, said he now regrets his 2020 vote for Trump, even though he cast his ballot more as a protest vote, knowing it wouldn’t matter in Massachusetts. “I was astonished at how he handled it,” Amore said of Trump. “From his first tweet while this activity is ongoing and he decided to attack the vice president for doing what the Constitution required him, I could see that he was going to handle the situation badly, and he did.”
But Michael Potaski, an Uxbridge resident and Trump supporter who has been active in the Massachusetts Republican Assembly, the more conservative wing of the GOP, said he sees no evidence Trump encouraged protesters to enter the Capitol. “To condemn Trump for something a group of people did is simply piling on. It’s a reflection of the anti-Trump or never-Trump attitude that pervades a lot of the Massachusetts Republican Party,” Potaski said.
The reactions among Massachusetts Republicans to the violence in Washington, DC, this week illustrates the stark divide within the state Republican Party. On Wednesday, pro-Trump protesters broke into the US Capitol and disrupted the counting of Electoral College votes, resulting in the deaths of four protesters and a Capitol police officer. According to state Republican officials, multiple busloads of Massachusetts residents went to Washington to join the protests. MassLive reported that a man from Pittsfield was among those arrested. While many leading Republicans in Massachusetts strongly condemned both the violence and the president, others stuck by Trump – and criticized the more moderate voices within the state party.
Gov. Charlie Baker, Massachusetts’ most powerful Republican, has never supported Trump. Baker blanked his ballot in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and has criticized the president’s temperament and policies. Baker issued a statement Wednesday calling the chaos “the sad but predictable outcome of weeks of attacks, perpetrated by President Trump and his supporters against the democratic process that makes America the greatest nation on earth.” At a press conference Thursday, Baker criticized the lax response of Trump and law enforcement to the protests, saying, “The whole thing makes me sick.”
Anthony Amore.
The party divide was already on display on Sunday, before the protests, when Jim Lyons won reelection as chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party in a 39-36 vote, defeating state Rep. Shawn Dooley, a Norfolk Republican. Lyons is a strong Trump supporter and a fiscal and social conservative, who has clashed with the more moderate Baker. Dooley, who also voted for Trump, had said he could bridge both wings of the party.
Lyons, in a statement Wednesday, condemned the mob’s attempts to “disrupt our precious and irreplaceable Constitutional order.” “Sadly, we are witnessing a breach of lawful order on Capitol Hill that is completely indefensible under any circumstances,” Lyons said. His statement did not mention Trump.
In contrast, Dooley wrote a lengthy post on Facebook condemning the mob, calling them traitors and anarchists, accusing them of terrorism, and expressing disappointment at the president. “I cannot tell you how horrified, saddened, and frightened I am for our nation,” Dooley wrote. “I’m ashamed of our President for encouraging this behavior and I feel guilty for not condemning more of his nonsense in the past.”
In an interview, Dooley said a lot of factors went into his decision to support Trump for president, and his first choice in the 2016 primary was Marco Rubio. “Obviously, since the election, I think his overall behavior has been surprising even for Trump,” Dooley said.
Dooley said going forward, he thinks the Republican Party needs to return to its core beliefs in principles like small government and personal responsibility, and he regrets that party politics have become more about loyalty to Trump than the common good. “We can’t be defined by a man. We have to be defined by a principle and a guiding set of principles,” Dooley said.
But some GOP activists say Trump is not to blame for the actions of those protestors who stormed Congress.
Tom Mountain, the vice chairman of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, said as of Wednesday, when Congress affirmed the Electoral College results, he has moved on and accepted that Democrat Joe Biden will be the next president. He took off his Trump campaign jacket and took pictures of himself removing his Trump sign from his lawn.
But Mountain doesn’t hold Trump accountable for egging on the protesters. He thinks Trump’s rally that day calling the election stolen and urging supporters to “show strength” as they marched to the Capitol is no different from his typical style of riling up a crowd. Mountain said there is a difference between urging protesters to protest outside the Capitol and telling them to smash their way indoors. “I think it took the president by surprise, it took all of us by surprise,” Mountain said. Mountain suggested that the president was isolated at the White House and “didn’t realize full extent of it” initially. Once he did, Trump told them to go home.
In a video message released during the protests, Trump reiterated claims that the election was stolen and told the protesters he loves them, but also told them to go home in peace.
Bill Gillmeister. (Facebook photo)
Mountain said he hopes the ringleaders are arrested and prosecuted, and there is further investigation into how four protesters died. According to the police, one was shot and three died from medical emergencies. But, Mountain said, “The party’s not responsible for the behavior of a few fringe elements that broke into the Capitol and did what they did.”
Some of the most conservative voices in the state Republican Party are criticizing Baker and former Massachusetts governor and now-Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican who blamed Trump for inciting an “insurrection,” for their anti-Trump stands. “We can’t view Mitt Romney and his ilk or even Charlie Baker as being representatives of the Republican Party going forward,” Potaski said.
Mary Lou Daxland, northeast regional vice president for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, blamed the media for being biased against Trump. Daxland, in an interview, reiterated the unproven claim that left-wing supporters of the group Antifa infiltrated the protest and stormed the Capitol to make Trump supporters look bad.
Daxland predicted that the criticism of Trump will cause further conflict between the more conservative and more liberal wings of the Massachusetts Republican Party. “Baker’s not even a RINO, he’s a Democrat with an R next to his name,” Daxland said, using the acronym for “Republican in name only.”
Bill Gillmeister, executive director of the conservative Renew Massachusetts Coalition, said he was in Washington for the protests on Wednesday, and he condemns the violence – just like he condemned this summer’s violence during the Black Lives Matter protests. “Ninety-nine point 99999 percent of people who were present on Wednesday were there only to petition the Congress to uphold the elections laws of this nation,” Gillmeister wrote in an email. “A very small number of people, likely lead by Antifa members, caused the mayhem that took place. They should be prosecuted to fullest extent of the law.”
Gillmeister said he stands by his support for Trump. “President Trump’s remarks were confined to reiterating his great accomplishments and to presenting the evidence of voter-fraud that took place in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin,” Gillmeister said. “He, in no way, said anything to incite the violence that took place.”
Some state Republicans have little interest in talking about Trump’s role in the protests. Patrick Crowley, a Republican State Committee member from the First Worcester District, called the violence “outrageous, totally unacceptable, and indefensible,” and called on government to move forward. Asked whether he had supported Trump, Crowley said that was “irrelevant.”
State Rep. David DeCoste, a Norwell Republican who in 2016 said he voted for Trump, said he wishes President-elect Biden well and he is worried about the economy, but he has no comment on the protests or on Trump. “I was busy the entire week worrying about what we were trying to pass [in the Legislature],” DeCoste said. “When you’re writing about zoning or raising taxes or pay raises, give me a call.”
Mass. Republicans Condemn
Violence At U.S. Capitol But
Disagree On Blame
Massachusetts Republicans have largely joined the state's all-Democrat congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in condemning Wednesday’s violence, after pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress was in session to certify the results of the November election.
But members of the state GOP have been less unified when it comes to the role played by President Donald Trump — disavowing the president’s rhetoric and actions yesterday in some cases and, in others, downplaying or outright denying the president had any responsibility in the mayhem.
A spokesperson for MassGOP Chairman James Lyons said that Lyons was out of town and unavailable to speak with GBH News but pointed to an online statement in which Lyons said he “unequivocably condemn[s]” the storming of Congress and called the violence Wednesday “indefensible.”
MassGOP Vice Chairman Tom Mountain, a former and former regional Trump spokesman, told GBH News Thursday afternoon that the violence was caused by a “a radical fringe of Trump supporters” and was not the president’s fault.
“The the idea was to go to the Capitol and to protest outside loudly, vociferously, but never to go inside and take it over,” Mountain said.
“It's unfair to, as Democrats are doing, to target [President Trump] for this,” Mountain told GBH News. “He had absolutely no control over these people, nor did he tell them to occupy the building. He would never have done that.”
Mountain defended the president’s repetition, in a statement broadcast during the mayhem, of unsubstantiated claims of a fraudulent election even while urging the mob to go home.
“That was the theme of the day — that was the reason for them being there,” Mountain said.
The president, he said, “didn’t know, like the rest of us didn’t know, that they were going to break into Congress.”
But at least some members of the MassGOP say its time for the party to take a hard look at itself.
State Rep. Shawn Dooley, who mounted an unsuccessful campaign to replace Lyons as MassGOP chair, told GBH News that state party leadership has failed to live up to its own principals.
“The majority of us need to stand up and say, ‘Look this is not who we are. This is not what we believe in,” Dooley said.
The MassGOP has only become smaller and weaker by “pandering” to Trump's base, Dooley said, rather than appealing to what he insists is a broader swath of voters who feel out of place in both parties.
“That negativity of ‘vote for us because they’re bad’ is not a winning philosophy,” Dooley said. “I don’t think it lends itself to debate or discussion or anything proactive.”
Other state party activists expressed outrage over Wednesday’s rampage while defending their work to continue to grow the Republican Party in Massachusetts.
“Politics is the most important question that we have," Massachusetts GOP strategist Wendy Wakeman said. "It’s the question of how we manage our joint affairs together."
“Yesterday’s violence and chaos was deplorable," she added, "There is nothing in what happened that I find productive to that conversation, and I’m disgusted. But it doesn’t change my will to continue as a voice in that conversation.”
Mass. GOP activist Anthony Amore, who mounted an unsuccessful run for secretary of state in 2018, voiced similar commitment to the Republican values, as he sees them, of limited government and individual freedom — but he did not mince words when it came to the president’s role in Wednesday’s violence.
“I don’t think anybody could watch the speeches given by the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and then the president, and not believe that they incited an already-angry crowd,” Amore told GBH News.
“Throughout the day, rather than just come out and call for an end to the violence and condemn it in very strong terms, that he would take the opportunity to say the election was stolen from him … it’s irresponsible, pathetic, and I was disgusted by his behavior yesterday," Amore said.
'He's brought it on himself': Falmouth protesters call for Trump's removal
FALMOUTH — In recent years, the Village Green has been the site of continuous protest in support of removing President Donald Trump from office.
Organizers had called an end to the protesting following Trump's general election defeat to President-Elect Joseph Biden in November. But on Sunday, days following last week's attack on the U.S. Capito, protesters returned to the green on West Main Street with renewed vigor, resuming their calls for the president's removal.
More than 100 people stood on the Village Green just after noon on Sunday. They stood inside the sturdy railing lining the park, holding signs, ringing cowbells and waving when drivers honked in support.
Other drivers occasionally yelled in opposition to the protesters.
A group called “Move to Remove,” formed after Trump’s inauguration, had been meeting in the green regularly on Saturdays. The green has also been the site of gatherings protesting racism in the months since George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. Protesters kneel in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck.
Sunday’s protest, which was organized by the Ad Hoc Coalition for the Immediate Removal of Trump, called for racial justice and political accountability. According to Amy Larkin, Wednesday's events at the Capitol showed the interconnection between politics and race.
“I’m not a Trump fan,” said Larkin, a Falmouth resident. “It looked to me like white supremacist terrorists took over the Capitol building on Wednesday.”
Larkin compared the reaction of law enforcement officials to Black Lives Matter protesters with the mob of Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol on Wednesday. Trump removed Black Lives Matter protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets so he could walk to a church for a photo op with a Bible.
On Wednesday, meanwhile, some officers stood by while crowds moved through the corridors of the Capitol. Fifteen people were arrested that day, though state and federal agencies are searching for those who broke windows, stole property and were responsible for five deaths, including Capitol police Officer Brian Sicknick.
Larkin thinks Wednesday’s riot happened in part because of Trump’s instructions to the National Guard and his removal of high ranking civilian officials at the Pentagon. The firing and resignations of senior leadership gave Trump critics, and some military leaders, cause for alarm.
“These guys waltzed right in,” Larkin said. “I think it could have been a blood bath.”
Wednesday’s riot at the Capitol brought Rachel White to the Village Green for the first time.
Nancy Kanwisher, one of three people holding a large IMPEACH sign at the tip of the triangular park, has been protesting with the Move To Remove group that’s been meeting weekly on the green. She blames Trump and some other Republicans for inciting Wednesday’s insurrection.
“Trump cannot get off the hook,” she said.
Peter Waasdorp, an organizer of Move to Remove, said Wednesday’s actions are the result of President’s Trump’s long string of lies.
“Little lies add up over time to strong beliefs not based on facts,” he said. “This is what happens when lies are allowed to be perpetuated.”
Waasdorp blamed social media and tech companies for letting the lies fester. He also blamed those who benefited from tax breaks and deregulation changes and gained personal power and influence for allowing Trump to continue to lie.
Waasdorp believes Trump will go down in infamy, remembered as the worst, or one of the worst, presidents in American history.
“He’s brought it on himself,” he said. “He made his followers ripe for this.”
Falmouth resident Jim Newman held an American flag in one hand and a Black Lives Matter sign in the other. Trump’s claim that the presidential election was fraudulent is a lie, he said.
Of 42 lawsuits filed in state and federal courts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Trump and his allies have lost or withdrawn 38. Four are still pending.
Judges have thrown out some cases citing their lack of evidence, speculative nature or having no basis in fact.
“It’s a huge, fundamental lie,” Newman said of Trump’s claims of a stolen election. “He’s been lying since the beginning. The more that can be done to discredit him the better.”
Danielle Travers said she is dismayed by what’s happening in the country. But what scares her is the loyalty some show to Trump, despite evidence that the election was fair and transparent.
“Trump is going one way or another, but he’s a tumor and the cancer has spread,” she said.
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