USA Today Deputy Editorial Page Editor David Mastio authored an op-ed Thursday charging that House Republicans who voted for a change in leadership were a greater threat to the republic than the 9/11 hijackers.
Mastio characterized the recall vote on Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s role as Republican conference chair as a singular referendum on President Donald Trump’s claim the November election was stolen, which Mastio decries as “The Big Lie,” a comparison to the Nazi propaganda campaign which led to Holocaust. Cheney’s opponents, therefore, are Trump’s co-conspirators on a mission to overthrow the government.
“As surely as the terrorists of 9/11 wanted to tear down American democracy in 2001, the terrorists of Jan. 6 want to tear down our democracy as well, even as they pose as its defenders,” Mastio wrote. “And unlike the Sept. 11 attackers, they are going to get another chance.”
ICYMI: After ousting Liz Cheney, Republicans prove they're a bigger threat than 9/11 hijackers https://t.co/GdxB3gLKux via @usatoday
— David Mastio (@DavidMastio) May 14, 2021
Mastio argued claims the Democrat Party hijacked the election are the source of revolution.
“If our democracy is being stolen, we will rise up in arms,” wrote Mastio. “If I thought our democracy was being stolen, I’d have joined in support of the broader Jan. 6 protests, if not the violence.”
On the contrary, it is these exact kinds of inflammatory claims that breed violence. By Mastio’s own logic, if one truly believes their political opponents are as great a threat as the terrorists who killed almost 3,000 Americans, then the U.S. government ought to wage war. In some respects, U.S. intelligence agencies already have, with double-standards of justice and intrusive dystopian surveillance conducted, even by the Postal Service.
When reached for comment, Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief of USA Today, refused to say whether she disagreed with Mastio’s claim that Republicans who voted against Cheney are worse than 9/11 hijackers who killed 3,000 Americans in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. She directed The Federalist to the paper’s public relations department.
A spokesperson for USA Today did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s inquiry.
In 2019, the same editor smearing those with he disagrees with who voted for a change in leadership as domestic terrorists, blacklisted The Federalist from being cited in USA Today pages for accurately reporting on the Russia collusion hoax under the Trump administration.
Cheney was ousted from her number three role in House GOP leadership Wednesday after the Wyoming lawmaker and dedicated Never Trumper continued to undermine the conference and engineer an inner-party civil war to rid the GOP of Trump and Trumpism supported by the base.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik was elected the new conference chair to replace Cheney on Friday.