House passes resolution condemning Trump’s racist comments on a mostly party-line vote

House Republicans defended Donald Trump’s racist statements today. You’re shocked, I’m sure.

From NBC House votes to condemn Trump ‘racist comments,’ with only four Republicans backing the measure:

Addressing the House of Representatives introducing the resolution calling for members to condemn Trump’s racist comments, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said:

“Every single member of this institution — Democratic and Republican — should join us in condemning the President’s racist tweets. To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people,” she said.

Cue the Republican outrage machine.

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., asked Pelosi if she would like to “rephrase her comment.” House members are barred from making disparaging remarks about the president on the floor of the House, but the resolution was aimed at criticizing the president for comments directed at four congresswomen of color who he said should “go back” where “they came” from.

Pelosi said she had “cleared my remarks with the parliamentarian before I read them,” referring to the House’s rules referee.

Collins persisted. “I made a point of order that the gentlewoman’s words are unparliamentary and her words be taken down,” he said.

The proceedings were then put on hold for over an hour as Collins’ request was considered. After the 60-minute mark, presiding chair Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., decided he’d had enough, and chastised both sides for rushing the vote and escalating tensions.

“We don’t ever, ever want to pass up, it seems, an opportunity to escalate, and that’s what this is,” he said.

“We want to just fight. I abandon the chair,” he said before hitting his gavel and walking out.

I can’t recall something like that ever happening before.

A short time later, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer took the chair and announced Pelosi’s comments had been found “not in order” [despite the fact that the language of the resolution itself refers to Trump’s racist comments.]  But the Maryland congressman then called a vote on whether the comments should be stricken from the record and the Democrats prevailed on a party-line vote, allowing Pelosi’s remarks to stand after an almost two-hour delay.

Because she’d been found out of order, Pelosi was barred from making comments on the House floor for the rest of the day — but Democrats voted to allow her to keep talking, again along party lines.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — who’d defended the president’s tweets earlier in the day — chided Democrats for having defied decades-old precedent. “The House just voted to condone this violation of decorum,” he said.

Decorum? Seriously Dude? (There is an antiquated House rule that prevents members from calling the president a racist during debate. In the age of Donald Trump, this antiquated rule now needs to be discarded.)

The vote on the resolution proceeded after fiery remarks from Rep. John Lewis, who’d marched alongside Martin Luther King. “Segregationists told us to go back,” he said.

“I know racism when I see it. I know racism when I feel it,” Lewis said. “The world is watching. They are shocked and dismayed because it seems we have lost our way.”

* * *

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution on Tuesday night condemning President Donald Trump for his “racist comments” about four Democratic congresswomen of color.

The resolution passed largely along party lines — 235 Democrats joined by only four Republican supported the measure — following hours of back-and-forth and gamesmanship between Republicans and Democrats, which included a GOP objection to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s remarks about Trump, and whether she would be allowed to keep speaking on the floor.

The four Republicans who voted in favor of the resolution, which “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color,” were Reps. Will Hurd of Texas, Fred Upton of Michigan, Susan Brooks of Indiana and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Rep. Justin Amash, who announced his departure from the Republican Party earlier this month, also voted in favor of the resolution.

Republicans are on the record as committed sycophant cult followers of the personality cult of Donald Trump. They are all in on Trump’s white nationalist racist reelection campaign. This is going to be the most divisive election since 1968. 2020 could very well turn out to be as violent a year as 1968.

Anyone who stands with this crypto-fascist racist demagogue Donald Trump should not be elected to office. Period.