The Republican congressman pals around with white nationalists and fomented insurrection, but he finally went one tweet over the line.
Representative Paul Gosar spoke at a conference held by a prominent white nationalist and Holocaust denier who he has continued to associate with. He has repeatedly defended those who stormed the Capitol and actively worked with an organizer of the January 6 rally preceding the riot to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And Wednesday, he finally faced consequences. By a vote of 223 to 207 with one member voting present, the Republican from Arizona was censured by the House of Representatives and stripped of his committee assignments. It wasn’t for any of those actions though. It was because Gosar posted a cartoon on Twitter. Of course, it wasn’t just any cartoon. It was an edited anime video, posted to his official Twitter account, that depicted Gosar murdering his colleague Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York and violently attacking Joe Biden. For Democrats that demarked a clear bright line; a simple rule that could be easily followed by all members in the future: Don’t threaten the lives of your colleagues Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a Democrat, said “If you threaten the life of another member of Congress. If you threaten direct violence then you don’t deserve to be on a committee.” He added, “that’s a very low bar.” All of Gosar’s gallivanting with white nationalists was immaterial, according to Democrats. “Once you bring more context into it you create more trouble for the institution,” said Dean Phillips of Minnesota. But, of course, context still matters. Again and again, Democrats speaking in support of the resolution of censure brought up January 6. In a chamber that members still need to go through metal detectors to access, the specter of that attack and of the increase in political violence in the United States loomed large as the House debated what would be its 24th censure of a member in history.
