The president decided to use the Secret Service, ICE, ATF, the National Guard (minus the troops requested from the states of New York and Virginia), the capital police and even the park rangers to violently clear a path through peaceful protesters in order to give a divisive, defamatory and inflammatory speech whilst holding a Bible.
I have heard statements in opposition of the president’s actions from prominent Republicans like Ben Sasse, Tim Scott, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and even Will Hurd of Texas. But the only thing I’ve heard from Utah’s congressional delegation is a comment from Mitt Romney saying that the president’s inflammatory racist rhetoric (“When the looting starts, the shooting starts“) “was inappropriate.”
Am I to believe that none of our congressional representatives are willing to take a stance against the way the president has handled this crisis over the last week? Do none of them have an opinion about what’s going on? I have emailed each of them requesting your opinion on the subject, and like so many other emails they have gone unanswered.
The people of Utah have asked you to be our leaders and in this time of crisis the best that all five of you can muster up the courage to say is that he is inappropriate?
Even the leader of the Episcopal church had clear words to denounce the president’s speech, and his use of that church as the backdrop for his defamatory words without even asking. Why can’t our congressional leaders?
Sam Dixon
Salt Lake City