Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

Definition of recklessness

Angle and her dangerous take on the Second Amendment and its ‘remedies’

There is plenty to cause Nevadans to shudder at the prospect of Sharron Angle becoming one of this state’s two senators in Washington. She pretty much hates government in any form, including Social Security and Medicare. As we wrote Sunday, she would like to privatize Social Security and Medicare, two essential lifelines for seniors. For that matter, she wants to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, an idea that polluting industries would love. Angle also would like to bring the nation’s nuclear waste to Nevada, undoing the outstanding achievements of her Democratic opponent in the general election, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been instrumental in halting a repository at Yucca Mountain.

An issue that generated a lot of attention last week, one that perfectly illustrated just how downright scary her political philosophy is, involved the Second Amendment and its “remedies” involving a tyrannical government. Here is what she told radio talk show host Lars Larson this year about the Second Amendment:

“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, ‘my goodness what can we do to turn this country around?’ I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

And it was just last month, in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, that Angle said “it’s almost an imperative” that conservatives win. “The nation is arming,” she said. “What are they arming for if it isn’t that they are so distrustful of their government? They’re afraid they’ll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways. That’s why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don’t win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”

Casually tossing around the possibility of an armed insurrection — as an answer to disagreeing with a decision by our elected members of Congress or not getting her way at the ballot box — shows just how dangerous Angle is. This kind of talk, especially when it’s made at Tea Party rallies, is usually shrugged off by conservatives as that of cranks, people who shouldn’t be taken seriously and who truly aren’t representative of the overall Tea Party movement. But the fact is that Angle isn’t just a disenchanted member of the public showing up at a right-wing rally: She is the Nevada Republican U.S. Senate nominee.

This is a moment of truth for other Republicans up for election in November: Will they proudly stand with their nominee at the top of the ticket, no matter how noxious Angle’s views are? Or will they repudiate those views and her candidacy? It’s unfathomable that traditional conservatives would be comfortable with Angle’s political philosophy, which is clearly outside of what just about anyone would consider mainstream. Reno Mayor Bob Cashell, who has supported Reid in the past, told the Associated Press that Angle is an “ultraright-winger” who is “just too far to the right for me.”

As if it weren’t obvious, Angle has no business being in the U.S. Senate. And something tells us that a growing number of sensible Republicans will soon be feeling, if they are not already, buyer’s remorse for nominating her to face Reid, a man who is straightforward and levelheaded — something that can’t be said about Angle.

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