Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07), speaking yesterday on CNN (see video, below):
“I think in American society there’s there’s always been challenges, there’s always been those who are outside the…societal norms of our community, of law and order. So I think that for those who would break the law, for those who would rise up in insurrection and attack the United States Capitol, I don’t think that President Biden’s message was intended for them; I think President Biden’s message was intended for Americans across the country who may have preferred a different outcome but weren’t going to rise up in an armed or violent insurrection to try and undo an election…I think it’s important to note that even when advocating for unity I didn’t hear word one of the president talking about not pursuing accountability, not talking about the reality of what occurred on January 6th and frankly, the rise of white nationalism which he mentioned in his speech the threat of domestic violence…
…What occurred on January 6 was not an isolated event. While it might have been an isolated event in that it was a violent attack on the United States Capitol, a one-time occurrence, the underpinnings of what happened there – the move towards the growth and the recruitment abilities that exist for these domestic violent extremist groups – this has been ongoing. Their growth, their networks have expanded. And so across our country we need to recognize that this is a real threat, this was not a one-off, this was not a one-time thing unless we aggressively work to make it so. And and it starts with ideology, it starts with us accepting half truths, it starts with us not speaking up when we hear something we know is wrong. It starts with…those in
political office who might politically benefit from allowing
people to think that a conspiracy theory is correct and that you know…you start to feel unmoored and you lose a sense of what is real and what is not, and that creates fertile ground for the domestic violent extremist groups that would be recruiting across this country. And you know we’ve seen a growth in that threat and we need to be wide-eyed and clear-eyed about the threat that it poses in our aggressive efforts to stop it…
…while we can try and find unity, we should be unified in our aggressive denouncement of white nationalism, far-right extremism and we should be very clear that even when it isn’t resulting in violence in the streets, as we saw in Charlottesville, as we saw in the Capitol, that if we are even allowing for that ideology to permeate our society to be excused in the way we heard the former president say ‘there were good people on both sides’, we are allowing it to seep in and take root and that those roots are what give it life. And so we might see it sprout up in different places. But that root system is what we all need to be unified in fighting.“
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