Conservatives justifiably have expressed outrage over Democratic Rep. Steven Woodrow’s Tweet suggesting that the problem with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump was that it generated “sympathy for the devil,” and over Woodrow’s non-apology apology “that [his] words caused additional pain.” The state Democratic Party condemned Woodrow’s remark.
Unfortunately, conservatives and Republicans in Colorado often have been far too reluctant to condemn hateful and violence-promoting rhetoric in their own camp. Three people (of many) who promoted the sort of election conspiracy mongering that led to the January 6 violent assault on the U.S. Capitol now are the Republican candidate for president (Trump), a member of the U.S. Congress (Lauren Boebert), and the chair of the state Republican Party (Dave Williams).
True, various Republicans currently are trying to remove Williams from his post as state chair following the GOP’s remarks that “God Hates [Pride] Flags” and that people should burn all such flags. And Republican voters rejected Williams’s brand of lunacy in the Fifth Congressional primary, a contest Williams pursued while state party chair.
Following the violence against Trump, Boebert recklessly said, “Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting.” She later doubled down, making the absurd claim that Biden issued “a direct call for an assassination” of Trump.
The tiny grain of truth to Boebert’s claims is that, on a phone call with donors, and in the context of the political election, Biden said “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.” He was wrong to use that phrase, even though he did so metaphorically, and he expressed regret for using it.
Robby Soave puts this in context: “Asserting that Biden’s bullseye comment had anything to do with political violence is obviously ridiculous. Moreover, Republicans know that it is ridiculous. In fact, they rightly criticized The New York Times and other media outlets for embracing the preposterous idea that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was morally responsible for the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords. The accusation against her was remarkably similar: The media seized on a map, circulated by her political action committee, that placed target crosshairs over Giffords’ district.”
Meanwhile, conservative activist Joe Oltmann dangerously likened the murderer at the Trump rally to specific Colorado journalists. Oltmann said, “Shooter is a rabid antifa member. . . . You know like Erik Maulbetsch of the Colorado Times Recorder or Sean Heidi Beedle of the same organization. Or Kyle Antifa Clark of 9news. . . . These are evil, disgustingly vile people and they need to be held accountable. They are terrorists. They are unAmerican and their Soros funded rhetoric needs to stop. They stole elections, stole our voice and it’s time to hold them accountable.”
We need not imagine what Oltmann means by holding news journalists “accountable.” He has told us repeatedly. Some years ago Oltmann “joked” that the governor of Colorado should be executed. Earlier this year he said that Biden should be put on trial and executed. He said in 2021, “I want to send the mainstream media to the gallows, radical leftists to the gallows, traitors to our nation to the gallows, and they all kind of fit in the same bucket.” Recently Oltmann, again invoking election conspiracies, said, “Let’s go get our guns; we have to have a target. The time is coming when good people will have to do bad things to bad people.”
Perhaps you are wondering why I am discussing Oltmann, who is not, after all, an elected official. He clearly is a party influencer. Last month, Williams, the chair of the Republican Party of Colorado (who also has spoken of a coming civil war), appeared on Oltmann’s show, thereby lending the party’s full weight to including Oltmann in the Republican sphere of influence. Also last month, Boebert was scheduled to hold a fundraising event at Oltmann’s gun shop (although I haven’t verified whether the event took place).
Then we have state representative Scott Bottoms claiming, with zero evidence, that the FBI was a part of the attempted assassination of Trump.
The silence from far too many Republicans is deafening. So long as many Colorado Republicans continue to ignore, tolerate, or openly embrace hateful, violence-promoting, conspiracy mongering rhetoric within their own ranks, they will continue to lose most elections, and they will deserve to lose.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
