Representative Peter Meijer (R-MI), one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Republicans who rioted on January 6, 2021 had “riot envy” toward the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020 after the George Floyd killing.
Host Chuck Todd said, “You’ve got one party that’s being led by Trump here that seems to be trying to delegitimize our democracy. Does that concern you?”
Meijer said, “I do but I also see another party that’s trying to delegitimize our democracy in far less dramatic ways. At least, you know, not guys with Viking hats, you know, bare-chested, running into the Capitol, but calling for packing the Supreme Court, calling for abolishing the Senate. And frankly, doing the same thing, the same justifications that I saw from some members of my party after the riots last summer. They say, “Well, why is it so bad that we stormed the Capitol? You know, they were the ones burning down these cities.’ The sense of riot envy. Now we have this delegitimizing envy where, again, it is creating a reciprocal reaction.”
Meijer added, “I think the threat of violence is probably more pronounced on the right today. But that does not mean the left is not capable as well. And that is what we need to cease.”
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