Massachusetts Republicans have largely joined the state's all-Democrat congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in condemning Wednesday’s violence, after pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress was in session to certify the results of the November election.
But members of the state GOP have been less unified when it comes to the role played by President Donald Trump — disavowing the president’s rhetoric and actions yesterday in some cases and, in others, downplaying or outright denying the president had any responsibility in the mayhem.
A spokesperson for MassGOP Chairman James Lyons said that Lyons was out of town and unavailable to speak with GBH News but pointed to an online statement in which Lyons said he “unequivocably condemn[s]” the storming of Congress and called the violence Wednesday “indefensible.”
MassGOP Vice Chairman Tom Mountain, a former and former regional Trump spokesman, told GBH News Thursday afternoon that the violence was caused by a “a radical fringe of Trump supporters” and was not the president’s fault.
“The the idea was to go to the Capitol and to protest outside loudly, vociferously, but never to go inside and take it over,” Mountain said.
“It's unfair to, as Democrats are doing, to target [President Trump] for this,” Mountain told GBH News. “He had absolutely no control over these people, nor did he tell them to occupy the building. He would never have done that.”
Mountain defended the president’s repetition, in a statement broadcast during the mayhem, of unsubstantiated claims of a fraudulent election even while urging the mob to go home.
“That was the theme of the day — that was the reason for them being there,” Mountain said.
The president, he said, “didn’t know, like the rest of us didn’t know, that they were going to break into Congress.”
But at least some members of the MassGOP say its time for the party to take a hard look at itself.
State Rep. Shawn Dooley, who mounted an unsuccessful campaign to replace Lyons as MassGOP chair, told GBH News that state party leadership has failed to live up to its own principals.
“The majority of us need to stand up and say, ‘Look this is not who we are. This is not what we believe in,” Dooley said.
The MassGOP has only become smaller and weaker by “pandering” to Trump's base, Dooley said, rather than appealing to what he insists is a broader swath of voters who feel out of place in both parties.
“That negativity of ‘vote for us because they’re bad’ is not a winning philosophy,” Dooley said. “I don’t think it lends itself to debate or discussion or anything proactive.”
Other state party activists expressed outrage over Wednesday’s rampage while defending their work to continue to grow the Republican Party in Massachusetts.
“Politics is the most important question that we have," Massachusetts GOP strategist Wendy Wakeman said. "It’s the question of how we manage our joint affairs together."
“Yesterday’s violence and chaos was deplorable," she added, "There is nothing in what happened that I find productive to that conversation, and I’m disgusted. But it doesn’t change my will to continue as a voice in that conversation.”
Mass. GOP activist Anthony Amore, who mounted an unsuccessful run for secretary of state in 2018, voiced similar commitment to the Republican values, as he sees them, of limited government and individual freedom — but he did not mince words when it came to the president’s role in Wednesday’s violence.
“I don’t think anybody could watch the speeches given by the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and then the president, and not believe that they incited an already-angry crowd,” Amore told GBH News.
“Throughout the day, rather than just come out and call for an end to the violence and condemn it in very strong terms, that he would take the opportunity to say the election was stolen from him … it’s irresponsible, pathetic, and I was disgusted by his behavior yesterday," Amore said.
