Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove unleashed a sweeping attack on members of his party who have echoed former President Donald Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election and the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, urging them to put patriotism ahead of political interests.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Thursday marking the one-year anniversary of the assault, Rove asked Republicans how they would respond if, after Trump won the 2016 election, Democrats had claimed fraud, stormed the Capitol, attacked police officers and threatened violence against GOP leaders to stop legally certified Electoral College votes for Trump.
Rove said Republicans would not have accepted such an action as merely a “protest,” called the rioters “patriots” or justified the attempt to change the outcome of a presidential election as Trump -- who has called the Nov. 3 election the “real insurrection” -- continues to do almost a year after leaving office.
“I’ve been a Republican my entire life, and believe in what the Republican Party, at its best, has represented for decades,” Rove wrote. “There can be no soft-pedaling what happened and no absolution for those who planned, encouraged and aided the attempt to overthrow our democracy. Love of country demands nothing less. That’s true patriotism.”
Rove ascended the ranks of national Republican politics alongside former President George W. Bush. And he’s credited with turning Texas into a GOP stronghold.
His comments...
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