Kansas Republicans criticized for 'vile' stunt with dummy in Biden mask
Source: The Guardian
Mon 11 Mar 2024 11.21 EDT
Kansas Republicans were condemned as vile and wrong after attendees at a fundraising event beat and kicked a martial arts dummy wearing a Joe Biden mask. Dinah Sykes, the Democratic minority leader in the state Senate, told the Kansas Reflector, a nonprofit news site: Political violence of any kind is vile and wrong, and we cannot afford to brush it under the rug when others encourage it.
Footage posted to social media showed attendees at the Johnson county Republican event kicking and beating the dummy, which was wearing a Biden mask and a T-shirt displaying the slogan Lets Go Brandon, a rightwing meme mean to disparage Biden. Sykes called for state Republican leaders to take action against those responsible.
Mike Brown, the Kansas Republican party chair, told the Kansas City Star he was not at the event, which was not organised by the state party, though he sent emails to promote it. Mike Kuckelman, a former state Republican chair, condemned the event. This conduct is shameful, and it is WRONG, Kuckelman wrote on Facebook. Brown and [Johnson county GOP chair Maria] Holiday must resign. Republicans, especially elected Republicans, must demand [this]. Silence is complicity in this case.
Citing Republican uproar in 2017 when the comedian Kathy Griffin posed with an effigy of Donald Trumps severed head, Kuckelman added: I dont agree with President Bidens policies, but he is a fellow human being. No one should condone or defend this horrific and shameful conduct. We are Republicans, and we are better than this.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/11/kansas-republicans-biden-mask-dummy
Oopsie Daisy
(2,725 posts)(No, they're not.)
Mz Pip
(27,454 posts)They couldnt even applaud when Biden condemned political violence in his SOTU speech.
Ocelot II
(115,924 posts)They are Republicans and they mostly aren't better than this.
Harker
(14,067 posts)It seems pretty rare lately.
I hope it catches on.
truthisfreedom
(23,160 posts)This is you. Insurrection-supporting cop-killing white supremacist freaks.
usonian
(9,924 posts)So-called republicans and "evangelicals" have been condoning domestic violence for over 8 years. Some a lot longer.
Dont try to distance yourself from the sadistic violence and hate.
You cheered it. You supported it. You echoed every lie. You joined the insurrection attempt.
YOU OWN IT
nickster48
(37 posts)Just brings out the best in everyone doesnt he?
Keep it classy assholes!
Kennah
(14,349 posts)slightlv
(2,852 posts)Gods... shame is totally lost on these people. When I worked at the Central Resource Library, I remember the United Way coming in to give us a program that detailed the amount of poverty in JoCo... where it was located and the levels. I was flabbergasted. I lived in Lenexa at the time. I was by no means rich (especially not as IT at the Library!), but neither was I poverty stricken. I just couldn't believe the amount of poverty that was glossed over and ignored. But overall, I wasn't surprised. You could generally tell who was very well off when they came into the library. They rarely treated any employee well.
THIS is a symptom of the vile disease that is the Repug party today. There is no chance for a rehabilitation, AFAIC. This whole party has to be defeated... from top to bottom... and put out to the same pasture as it's predecessor, the No-Nothing party. Only when it lays dead in the grave can something possibly be created that can take up the place as a challenger of ideas and policies in this country. Until then, the only thing they have to give the country is violence, dissension, pain and cruelty, IMO, at least.
Freyda99
(4 posts)This sort of thing is why I wont move back to Johnson County, KS, though we still own a home there and my husband would like to. I feel safer here in the blue state where weve been now for 10 years. I was never a Republican, but time was there were Republicans who were decent people even if I disagreed with them on almost everything, and even had some as friends. Those days are gone as most GOP leadership have sunk willingly into Trumps cesspool of criminality and moral turpitude, while the bulk of Republican voters twist themselves into knots trying to minimize or rationalize it all away.