Three of Paul Gosar's siblings are concerned about his behavior to have written an OpEd for NBC-- Our Brother Paul Gosar Backed Trump's Lie And Betrayed America. Has He No Shame? It isn't the first time they've expressed disgust at their extremist, fascist brother in Arizona. In fact, in both 2018 and 2020 six siblings released campaign ads urging Gosar's constituents to vote for another candidate. This is the one from 2018:
In the video below, two of them, Jennifer and Tim Gosar, were on the air with Mehdi Hasan soon after their brother plotted to overthrow the government and reinstate Trump through the insurrection and failed coup on 1/6. Some think Gosar is likely to be subpoenaed by the select committee to testify about his role in planning the coup.
Yesterday's OpEd asserts that Gosar is a conspiracy theorist who "betrayed his family, his country and himself." They want him to resign or be kicked out of Congress. And they want to select committee to delve into his activities leading up to the violent insurrection.
In 1954, the Boston lawyer Joseph Welch famously asked Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, “At long last, sir, have you left no sense of decency?” It was a question that marked the beginning of the end for McCarthy’s madness, and the senator died a disgraced and despised opportunist.
We now ask our brother, Rep. Paul Gosar, that same question. Although his colleagues in Congress and others in the media seem to only recently be paying attention, we have been aware of his unhinged behavior for years. We are therefore not surprised to see him heading down a very similar path to McCarthy's.
So, have you no sense of decency, Paul? Wasn’t it shameful and destructive enough when you:
● Falsely blamed the Charlottesville, Virginia, neo-Nazi march on an innocent, old man in a vicious anti-Semitic attack?
● Claimed that Covid-19 was overblown and would miraculously disappear after the election, thereby misleading and harming those who believed you, despite the fact that Arizona had the highest infection rate in the world both before and after the November election?
● Marched in England for convicted criminal Tommy Robinson in support of his hateful attacks against British Muslims?
● Backed the Cliven Bundy insurrection, when Bundy used an armed mob to defy officers attempting to enforce laws Bundy had clearly violated for years? (And doubled down on Bundy’s bigotry by failing to condemn Bundy’s horrible racist rant, although that rant was too much even for Sean Hannity?)
● Were an open and avowed “birther”?
And this is just the start of our list, which includes so many other examples, from your decision to lobby for John McCain’s Senate seat while he was still alive to supporting the Senate run of Roy Moore, who was accused of sexual misconduct with teenagers when he was in his 30s. (Moore has denied the allegations.)
It seems, in fact, that you are immune to shame. In addition to betraying your family and causing irreparable damage to the relationships within it, you decided to betray your country by helping incite the Jan. 6 domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol.
For starters, you repeatedly lied about the election results and achieved the deplorable distinction of being the congressman with the most tweets devoted to election lies and instigating the riot. Then you helped organize the “Stop the Steal” rallies with Ali Alexander while calling President Joe Biden a “usurper” who stole the election and was engaged in a “coup,” challenging crowds to “take the Hill” and saying “sedition and treason for stealing votes is appropriate.” You ended your “Open Letter to Arizona” by calling on supporters to “be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House.” Finally, you lied on the floor of Congress and falsely claimed that hundreds of thousands of Arizona ballots had been deliberately switched from former President Donald Trump to Biden-- a statistic you most certainly knew to be a complete lie.
But just as shocking, you are now trying to gaslight everyone by claiming Ashli Babbitt was somehow an innocent bystander as she attempted to smash her way into the hallway right outside the chamber where you were hiding, having only moments before lied about the election.
In fact, your lies helped delay the Capitol Police from clearing the chamber, and this delay led at least in part to the officer’s decision to shoot Babbitt to protect you. And now you have the gall to blame those men and women who protected you for her death. Disgracefully, you even voted against awarding commendations to those who risked their lives to protect yours? You, one of the key big lie proponents and key instigators of the insurrection? Have you left no sense of decency?
Which brings us to your white supremacist ally, Nick Fuentes. How is it that a hateful boy 40 years your junior is able to lead you around by your nose? Let’s start there. And what about Fuentes’ disgusting and appalling Holocaust denial you have never once condemned? Or his racist statements scoffing at the horrors of Jim Crow, segregation and Derek Chauvin’s brutal murder of George Floyd-- again, statements you have never condemned. What decent person would associate with such a wretched creature? None of your colleagues will go near him.
Maybe you don’t know how you got to this very dark place, Paul. Unfortunately, we have some ideas. Maybe it’s because you’re in way over your head in Congress and don’t have the intellect, character or maturity to be in that leadership role. Maybe your lifelong, insecure need for the approval of others caused you to sacrifice your common decency and integrity to satisfy Trump and his followers in order to keep your seat.
The extremism of your beliefs is finally getting the media attention it deserves. What should happen now is that you resign. Sadly, this seems unlikely. This means unless your colleagues step in, you are likely doomed to go down in history as a cautionary tale: a person who betrayed his family, his country and even himself.
Ultimately, the first victim of the big lies-- the lies you have always told yourself to justify anything you do, always for your benefit and at the expense of others-- is really you.
Gosar represents the reddest district in Arizona. AZ-04, which sprawls from the northern part of the state right down to a stone's throw from the Mexican border, has a PVI of R+22. It consists of all of La Paz county and part of 6 others, along the western border of the state and reaching into the center as well. It's not a productive district and the economy is based on tourism and retirement communities. The closest thing to a city is Prescott. Trump beat Biden there 68-31% at the same time that Gosar was reelected with 69.7%. Unless Gosar goes to prison for his role in the coup attempt, or the district is redrawn, he can be the congressman from this backward corner of America for as long as he likes. He's their kind of representative.
