Readers sound off on Capitol attack and aftermath
High level of division
The “stolen election” hot-air balloon still floats, but it should be pierced. Senator Daines belatedly changed his vote on the subject, Rep. Matt Rosendale did not. Neither has backed away from their pre-riot rhetoric that helped inflame the recent insurrection and still does damage.
Trump claimed “rigged-election” a year ago as the states figured out how to conduct elections during Covid-19. Many piled on those claims, building the distrust. Daines, in his original support for decertification, citied the close returns and “irregularities” in three states. Turns out those three states were Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. All had election laws modified by Republican-controlled legislatures. The votes in all three states were counted and recounted. All three governor’s, two Republican, certified the results.
A lot of decertification rhetoric focused on one suit in Pennsylvania, dismissed by their Supreme Court.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court found the challenge to the results of the election were not timely. The court held changes made to Pennsylvania election laws (by the Republican controlled legislature allowing more mail-in voting) were in place long enough to be appealed well before the election. They ruled that overturning the election, not based on the fairness of the vote, but on a post-election challenge on procedure changes instated by the legislature, was a suit best left to be settled later, but did not merit overturning of millions of already cast ballots. On appeal, our nation’s Supreme Court found that ruling reasonable.
Trump’s claims of thousands of ballots being destroyed in Georgia inflamed things, but were not supported by the Republicans who ran the election.
We have fairly elected a president, but still a high level of “stolen election” division.
More definitive support of the election from our elected officials is justified and would help cool things down.
—Steve Brady, Kalispell
Don’t blame Trump
Are you blaming Trump for the violence? Really?
Look back at the last four years of unpatriotic actions by the Democrat party. The best way to have prevented the recent violence was to stop it at the source years ago. We “swear to protect, uphold and defend” is what politicians swear to. That is all the laws for everyone, and not just the laws that work for them.
Well, when they say “kill the president” or “I hope he dies,” looters and rioters get away with violence and criminals are bailed out of jail by Democrats. What can you expect.
The solution was never to have let unlawful activities start or encouraged when they started. Regain civility by any and all means necessary. We do not need a committee to figure out what happened. We need the laws enforced equally. When laws and enforcement are thrown by the wayside, then civil unrest continues and Communism enters like a Trojan horse.
So throw in the stupidity of the U.S. borrowing and printing money only to give it away to foreign countries and special interest groups. How do you STOP the borrowing and repay the debt? Will it be in rubles or yen? They are winning from within.
—Ron Albrecht, Kalispell
Lack of integrity
I hope and expect that it has now become clear to ALL Montanans, including those who may previously have had their doubts, the total lack of integrity and quality of character of Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Matt Rosendale.
The decision taken by these our newly elected representatives in Washington to object to the certified results of Electoral College voting is nothing short of disgusting – there is no other appropriate word. Their choice goes beyond misguided loyalty, beyond ignorance of law and procedure, and borders on malfeasance and a concerted undermining of our democratic institutions. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Perhaps they should remain in D.C. so as to hide from the gaze of their constituents.
I am appalled and saddened to have to admit that these people represent me.
—Paul Ronald Gerson, Kalispell
Law and order
I encourage members of the House and Senate to vote for impeachment of Donald Trump regardless of the timeline it takes. We need to re-establish the rules of law and order. Trump’s attempt to overthrow a valid election undermines our democracy. Failure to punish him will embolden others in the future that may have better skill sets. Impeachment will help re-establish our trust in democracy. Yes, an impeachment trial will be painful and cause further division but failure to do so weakens our democracy.
I also encourage the House and Senate to investigate each legislator on record supporting Trump’s false narrative of election fraud. Those legislators are at a minimum complicit in the failed overthrow attempt. Many of these legislators are now attempting to rewrite the purpose of their objections leading up to the Jan. 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol. The emails and letters sent by these legislators in November and December prove otherwise. These individuals plainly perpetuated the false narrative of voter fraud. These legislators gave false hope to individuals and organizations angry with the Presidential election results. This false hope led to the storming of the Capitol. Do not let these legislators rewrite their active role in the overthrow of a fair presidential election.
Some legislators object to impeachment proceedings or investigations in the attempted overthrow of our democracy. These legislators claim we need to “dial back the temperature” to help unify the country. Re-establishing law and order is the best way to unify the country. This requires an honest look at those individuals that perpetuated the lies of voter fraud to the American people. Only then can we dial the temperature back and unify this country.
—John Gangemi, Columbia Falls
Elections have consequences
If the massive election fraud in the 2020 presidential election is allowed to stand, then our votes going forward are as meaningless as the promises of feckless politicians.
Where was the congressional outrage and the FBI when antifa and BLM were “peacefully” rioting, looting and burning down America’s cities last spring and summer? Where was Big Media and Big Tech’s moral condemnation of this organized lawlessness?
The fact is, the assault on the nation’s Capitol was planned and provoked by antifa, BLM and their ilk, not Trump supporters.
Insurrection? The real insurrection took place Nov. 3 when the Democrats manipulated voting machines, used late-night dumps of illegal ballots and prevented authorized poll watchers from clearly observing the vote count. Why did the key swing states simultaneously stop counting votes the night of the election when Trump had commanding leads in these states? Coincidence, or orchestrated cheating?
After seeing the 2020 presidential election rigged and stolen, and watching their corrupt system of government turn a blind eye to the rule of law, the American people will now have a crime boss with strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party as their president. You know the republic is circling the drain when the president is denied his day in court to show the overwhelming evidence of election fraud. With communist-style censorship, he is also being denied his freedom of speech.
Elections have consequences, especially fraudulent ones. Now America can take pride in joining banana republics around the world ruled by tyrants and thugs. God help us.
—Richard S. Grozik, Kalispell
[EDITOR’S NOTE: FBI officials have said there is no evidence that antifa activists were involved in the Capitol riot. The U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud.]
Trump’s intent
To be clear about what happened Jan. 6, Trump did nothing less than lead a seditious conspiracy to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. There can be no doubt that Trump’s intent, taking into full account his conduct over the last four years, was to subvert our democracy to his personal advantage.
Trump once again (this was far from an isolated incident) incited his base to violence, by directing hundreds of Proud Boys, Qanons, and other ignorant radicals, to storm the U.S. Senate and House chambers as they were in session to hear the absurd objections to the election results, as posed by Montana’s own Daines, Rosendale, and the rest of the radical right-wing faction of Congress.
Trump, no doubt, is very pleased that he has turned so many Republicans into a band of despotic thugs, intent on instigating nothing less than a coup d’état in the America others of us love and cherish. The Proud Boys, etc., who forcibly breached U.S. Capitol security, are plainly guilty of sedition. Since Trump incited their actions, he, likewise, is guilty of the same crime.
However, enablers such as Daines, Giantforte, and Rosendale, et. al., who all helped spread Trump’s lies about election fraud, are not blameless. Daines’, Rosendale’s and Gianforte’s shameful roles in supporting Trump’s seditious cause is inexcusable. Although their reprehensible conduct probably doesn’t rise to “aiding and abetting” in the legal sense, the threat that Daines, Gianforte and Rosendale injected into our democracy cannot be undone, or forgiven, and will certainly not be soon forgotten by any truly patriotic American.
Undoubtedly, there will be many letters to the Inter Lake that will claim the insurrection we witnessed was justifiable, and that our deranged, demented and lying president actually won the election. I, personally, hope the Inter Lake will print all such letters so that we, as a community, will know who among us are still intent on destroying our democracy and obliterating our Constitution.
—Al Weed, Kalispell
Failure to condemn
Open letter to Daines and Rosendale:
Your failure to condemn the role Trump played to instigate the domestic terrorist attack on our Capitol shows your cowardice and continued adherence to cockeyed and false conspiracy theories. You clearly expressed your intent to vote against certifying this fair and legal election. In doing so you falsely encouraged Trump voters to believe they could throw out legal electors and put in place alternative electors ensuring a reversal of the election and a Trump win.
The idea of a commission to study so-called voting irregularities was a ruse to keep the certification of Biden and Harris in limbo and give the Trump cabal more time to implement the insurrection and overturn the election.
The riotous goons were a mix of hardcore zealots, white nationalists, QAnon wingnuts, self-claimed patriots and those intent on violence and overthrow of the government. Is this the Trump base you are so afraid of offending lest you lose their votes?
You fail to accept your own responsibility for the violent insurrection promulgated by your lies and the lies of your cult leader Trump. You have shown extremely poor judgment in your actions, a cavalier disregard for our democratic form of government and a blind allegiance to a demagogue. You can not continue to represent the people of Montana and must resign your offices.
—Bob Slonaker, Lakeside
Party over principle
We are ashamed! The Jan. 6 storming of “the peoples home” was predictable considering our President’s unhinged behavior and his supportive enabler allies within his administration and Congress. We hold our conservative Montana Congressional leaders’ co-conspirators in this profound act of sedition.
We have often written over the last six years to Sen. Steve Daines using the salutation the Honorable. No longer. Words matter and actions have consequences.
Immediately after the November election, Mr. Daines responded with his version of reality by texting: “Dems are stealing the election. Trump needs our support. Give five dollars & help us fight back now! - Steve Daines.”
In early December, he joins a belated Texas lawsuit against four states wishing to disenfranchise millions of voters. In January 2021, Steve Daines became one of 11 senators in his party who said they would reject the Electoral College outcome of a free and fair election. Without proof, he says: “the way Americans voted was altered at a scale never before imagined outside what the state legislative process intended.”
Only after the hallowed halls of our nation’s capital are breached, he then votes to certify our electoral votes after the damage has already been done.
After four days in office, Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale showed us his true colors; party over principle and allegations without evidence. On Tuesday, January 5, 2021, Mr. Rosendale joins a group of Republican Representatives who announced their intention to object to Electoral College results from four states. State officials have certified their election results as fair and valid. No fraud has been proven in court.
After the U.S. Capitol is once again secured, leaving four people dead, Matt Rosendale joins the party vote to oppose the certification of our electoral votes.
Mr. Rosendale, votes matter.
—Leland and Vicki Walbruch, Kalispell
What Daines and Rosendale must do now
In November, Montana voters gave Steve Daines six more years as our junior senator, and chose Matt Rosendale as our representative. As their first acts of 2021, they have forever added their names to the list that future historians will examine of those who aided and abetted the attempt of Trump supporters to overturn an American election.
Many have described what happened in our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6 as the acts of “thugs” and “goons.” Those terms actually minimize and depoliticize who they are and what they did. They are domestic terrorists who engaged in violent sedition.
At the last second, Daines withdrew his name from the treasonous 12 who supported the challenge to the election. But after his endless months of feeding the lies that inspired an attempted American coup, it’s not nearly enough.
Both he and Rosendale must begin by apologizing for fomenting this tragic state of affairs and publicly renounce the falsehoods about the election. They must openly admit that they knew all along that every single electoral outcome in every single state was accurate, clean, fair, and legal, and that every single accusation to the contrary was false.
Second, they must fully support the immediate removal and conviction of Trump. His lawless attempts to subvert democracy — including most recently his hour-long recorded call on Jan. 2 to Georgia’s Republican election officials and his speech on Jan. 6 directly instructing his crazed supporters to assault Congress — are irrefutable proof that he constitutes a clear and present danger to the republic in these final two weeks of his term.
Next, federal and state prosecutors need to look closely at Daines, Rosendale, and other Republicans who supported Trump’s lies and lawlessness for possible indictment for subversion of the Constitution and incitement of violence and sedition.
—Thompson Smith, Charlo