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'I'm just beginning to get some perspective,' says Arizona denier who will chair election committee [1]

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Date: 2022-11-19

"I don't know, maybe Arizonans don't want hate, lies, division, racism, nativism, antisemitism, misogyny, and religious fundamentalism. Maybe they're not interested in rounding up political opponents and jailing or even hanging them, like I suggested. Maybe they don't support Putin, like I do. Just askin', guess I need another perspective because now I'm running the Senate's Election Committee, when I don't really believe in elections."

More than any state, Arizona’s 2022 Republican slate was top-to-bottom bozo election deniers in the statewide races: Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, US Senator. They all sought and celebrated trump’s endorsement, he campaigned here for them, and they repeated his stolen election nonsense at nearly every campaign stop.

I wrote earlier that Democrats would win the four statewide races, and so far that prediction is panning out while we await the AG result, which is likely going to a recount. Most importantly, Kari Lake and Mark Finchem will not be at the top of the government’s organizational chart where they could do—indeed, they said they would do—serious damage to democracy. (Of course, none of the mini-trumps have conceded.)

One statewide race Republicans did win is Treasurer, where Kimberly Yee defeated Democrat Martin Quezada. Yee did not seek trump’s endorsement and she did not repeat the stolen election bullshit, as the other four did. They lost, she won—maybe Republicans will take note of the lesson therein, but I doubt it.

Lost in the national celebration stories are Republican victories: Arizona’s congressional delegation shifted from 5-4 Democrat to 6-3 Republican (two election-denying GOP candidates, Paul Gosar and Debbie Lesko, did not even have a Democrat challenger). The Legislature also remains firmly in the grasp of bigots, misogynists, election deniers, and christian nationalists. Few officials embody that extremism more than Senator Wendy Rogers, who represents the White Mountain region of Arizona, an overly bright red land of nuttery.

Rogers, you may recall, was the Senator who was overwhelmingly censured by her own party for badmouthing Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, propping up Putin, embracing white nationalists and QAnon boobs like Nick Fuentes, and urging the government to erect gallows for Democrats. She seems nice. When you’ve gone too far for the Arizona Republican Party you’re truly in Taliban territory.

Like almost every other Republican, Rogers was cheerleading for the 2022 red wave—convinced her state would elect Kari Lake and Mark Finchem so they could dismantle the state’s electoral system and entrust the Legislature to make decisions, not voters. This Legislature!

Now that Arizonans have said “no” to MAGA extremism three election cycles in a row (no to Martha McSally in 2018, no to Donald Trump in 2020, no to Kari Lake and Mark Finchem in 2022), Rogers, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the US Congress, is having a moment.

Just maybe the denial, lies, racism, misogyny, QAnon bullshit, and white supremacy aren’t what Arizonans want—at least not a majority of people living outside of Rogers’ ruby red district. Sharing tears with Charlie Kirk of Turning Points USA over the election results, Rogers experienced a moment of zen:

“We wonder now if we were in an echo chamber,” said state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R), who has also suggested throwing county officials in solitary confinement and spent years lying about the 2020 election. “I don’t know, I’m just beginning to get some perspective,” added Rogers.

That’s a start, anyway—perhaps tap into a perspective other than Newmax, Parler, and Bannon’s shitshow. Well, Sen. Rogers is going to need that new perspective because she’s just been selected to chair the Arizona Senate’s Election Committee:

Her appointment for the upcoming legislative session was confirmed Tuesday by Arizona Senate President-elect Warren Peterson, according to a local NBC News affiliate. Petersen supported the Republican-sponsored and Trumpist-led “audit” of Maricopa County’s ballots from 2020—an effort to invalidate the state’s election results for President Joe Biden.

That’s right, the Senator who was censured by her colleagues, the Senator who still says 2020 was stolen from trump, the Senator who maintains Kari Lake won the 2022 race, the Senator who thinks Legislators should decide races, not voters—that Senator will lead the GOP Election Committee. And here I thought Republicans folded fast after trump’s crimes were revealed.

Censure Rogers in March, give her the election reins in November.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/19/2136368/--I-m-just-beginning-to-get-some-perspective-says-Arizona-denier-who-will-chair-election-committee

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