Emmer misleads public

Minnesota’s Sixth District congressman Tom Emmer may have hoped to discredit the “No Kings” protests held across the state and country on Oct. 18. In the end, however, it was his own credibility that took the hit and he now faces demands from some constituents to apologize for his what was clearly an effort to defame them.
In the days leading up to what appears to have been the largest single-day protest in American history, Emmer joined other GOP leaders in spreading a coordinated lie, that the millions of protesters turning out for the events were “terrorists” and part of a “Hate America” movement led by antifa. Republican governors in some states called out their National Guard, wasting taxpayer funds on the pretense that the “No Kings” rallies would be violent.
But the protests that took place in Minnesota and around the country proved the GOP attacks for what they were: false talking points designed to avoid accountability for the very real concerns that most Americans share about the increasingly authoritarian direction of the country. Rather than address those concerns, which would mean standing up to their president, the GOP’s frontmen chose to attack the messengers, all 5-7 million of them.
While the protesters who turned out in communities across our region on Oct. 18 were steadfast, they were entirely peaceful and as pro-American a crowd as one could hope to assemble these days, as one might expect from a rally dubbed “No Kings.”
It’s the kind of rally one might expect would find support from every true American, given that it was the rejection of a king that made us all Americans in the first place.
The most common “sign” at the local rallies on which we reported was a simple American flag waving in the cool northwest breeze.
Contrast that to a Trump rally, where the stars and stripes are routinely replaced by Trump flags, highlighting the MAGA movement’s allegiance to their leader rather than the principles upon which this country was founded.
We experienced MAGA’s feelings about America on Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump’s supporters built a gallows for the vice president, violently broke through a police barricade, trashed the U.S. Capitol building, and defecated in congressional offices while their satisfied leader watched on television from the White House.
The millions of Americans who turned out on Oct. 18 have no such confusion about where their allegiance lies. It is with the principles that have actually made America strong and free.
Emmer was willing to go on television to spread lies about millions of decent Americans but when will he, or any of the Republican members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation for that matter, be willing to push back against the actions of a president who dismisses their own authority under the Constitution?
When do they plan to challenge Trump’s cancelation of funding that Congress previously approved?
Federal laws, passed by Congress and signed into law by previous presidents, prohibits such actions, but Trump does them anyway, effectively stripping away Congress’s Article I authority.
Where was Emmer when Trump decided entirely on his own, and in violation of other federal laws, to demolish a third of the White House to make way for an addition that has yet to be approved by anyone? When is Tom Emmer going to challenge Trump’s jaw-dropping claim that he can write himself a check for $230 million straight from the taxpayers’ pockets? When, for that matter, will the House of Representatives even go back into session? Or are they there only for the window dressing, while ceding all actual authority to their wannabe king?
In the end, the GOP response to the “No Kings” protests proved the protester’s point.
We have a major political party that is allowing their president to run roughshod over the Constitution. By tearing down the checks and balances that are supposed to keep would-be dictators in check, the Republicans are openly complicit in Trump’s authoritarian takeover — replacing the rule of law with the right of kings.
What we have in Washington today is a government that operates on the whims of one man. Tom Emmer and his fellow GOP members of Congress should be doing their part to maintain the constitutional order.
Instead, they spend their time defaming decent Americans, who are willing to stand up and call out Trump for his gross excesses. These weren’t terrorists, as Emmer slandered. These were red-blooded Americans, who just want their country back.