Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania (DJOP) today asked U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick why he and his Republican House of Representatives refused to participate in a moment of silence to mark the January 6, 2021 attack on our nation’s Capital.
The only Republicans to participate in yesterday’s observance of the insurrection were U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Jill Zipin, Chair of DJOP, said that a call yesterday to Fitzpatrick’s office offered no response to why he and his colleagues boycotted the moment of silence.
In a letter to Fitzpatrick she said that she and her fellow board members “are deeply disappointed that except for Rep. Cheney and her father not a single Republican was willing to acknowledge the reality of the freighting assault on our democracy, the police who defended the Capitol and our elected representatives and their staff members.” DJOP’s letter said:
“We have to ask what has happened to the Republican Party when it is unwilling to set politics aside and recognize the importance of the democratic process, and to admit that the Jan. 6 attack was an insurrection in every sense of the word.
“Where are the former ‘law and order’ Republicans? They seem to have lost any sense of decency and honesty. Instead of defending our democracy, they deny the violence that took place in front of their own eyes. They ignore reality, and in doing so they greatly embarrass our nation in front of the entire world and place our democracy at great risk.”