On February 16, 1981, President Ronald Reagan issued a stark warning about the lethal morality of the men who ran the Soviet Union:

“The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”

Forty-one years later, were he alive, he could give the same warning—about the men and women who run the Republican party.

Ronald Reagan

But since he isn’t alive to do so, other Republicans have unintentionally done so for him.

One is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA).

On January 10, he vowed that, if Republicans capture the House of Representatives in November, he will remove three prominent Democrats—Eric Swalwell (CA), Adam Schiff (CA) and Ilhan Omar (MN)—from important committee assignments.

Kevin McCarthy

McCarthy made his threat after House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi removed two Republican members of Congress—Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) and Paul Gosar (AZ)—from their committees.

Greene and Gosar had made a series of inflammatory comments that demonstrated their general unfitness for office.

Gosar had posted an anime video online that showed him attacking President Joe Biden with a sword and appearing to murder his colleague, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY).

Greene had supported the QAnon lie that Democrats are tied to a child sex ring; made anti-Semitic comments; and blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers.  

“The Democrats have created a new thing where they’re picking and choosing who could be on committee. Never in the history have you had the majority tell the minority who could be on committee,” McCarthy told the Right-wing Breitbart News.

A second Republican threat-maker: Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.

On January 23, he threatened imprisonment for members of the January 6 Committee investigating the attempted coup at the Capitol Building in 2021.

“You’re gonna have a Republican majority in the House, a Republican majority in the Senate [in January, 2023, following the November 8 elections]. And all these people who’ve been so tough and so mean and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every email.” 

Newt Gingrich

Significantly, he made that prediction on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. Fox is the network dedicated to advancing Republicans’ increasingly Fascistic agenda.

Accusing the Committee of being  a “lynch mob” that is “pursuing innocent people,” Gingrich added:

“I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down. The wolves are gonna find out they’re now sheep, and they’re the ones who are, in fact, I think, going to face a real risk of going to jail for the kind of laws that they’re breaking.”

Gingrich did not specify which laws he believes the committee has broken.

Gingrich accused the January 6 Committee of acting like “a lynch mob.” But he he neglected to note that among those being investigated are people who literally built a gallows to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence—and probably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

As if these warnings weren’t enough, the Republican National Committee (RNC) issued its own on February 4.

It came during an official censure of two of their fellow Republicans—Representatives Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).

Their “crime”: Being the only Republicans to serve on the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, otherwise known as the January 6 Committee. 

That censure described the deadly riot, where hundreds of then-President Donald Trump’s disciples stormed the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee their chambers for safety, as “legitimate political discourse.” 

Specifically:

“WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it 

“RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee hereby formally censures Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and shall immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference.”

Thus, according to the RNC, a violent and treasonous attempt to prevent the orderly and legal transition of power from one President to another has become “legitimate political discourse.”  

This is no private opinion of a single Republican—or even a fringe group of Republicans. It bears the official stamp of the Republican National Committee.

The RNC is described on Wikipedia as:

“A U.S. political committee that leads the Republican party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising, election strategy, and a ‘party brand.’ It is also responsible for organizing and running the Republican National Convention.” 

It counts as no less than the official Republican endorsement of violence on behalf of their party.

Or, as Ronald Reagan put it: “The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”