Lexington Herald-Leader: Charles Booker: Rand Paul ‘weaponizes hate’ rather than uniting Kentuckians.
Thanks to our friend and Democratic activist Judy Tuggle of Mayfield for sending us this.
By CHARLES BOOKER
Last week, I found myself listening to the harrowing testimony of police officers charged with defending the U.S. Capitol Building from an angry, violent mob. As they spoke to lawmakers in Congress about being beaten, tased, and degraded with racial epithets, I was speechless, glued to the screen in awe of their bravery and sacrifice, and crushed by this traumatic reminder of the deep ills we still face as a nation.
Not so long afterwards, in the waiting room for a prenatal appointment with my expecting wife, I saw Sen. Rand Paul’s response to the testimony of Capitol Police Officers scroll across my phone. I couldn’t believe what I saw: He called the insurrectionists, the ones who carried zip ties looking to hold Sen. Paul and his colleagues hostage, the ones who killed one police officer and beat another until he lost consciousness, the ones who carried Confederate flags into the Capitol and used flagpoles to bludgeon officers, Sen. Paul called them “non-violent trespassers.” To make matters worse, he invoked the letters BLM, seeking to draw a comparison between ongoing protests for racial justice with an outright attempt to overthrow democracy.