Politicians in Missouri are calling for one of their state’s congressional representatives to resign after he publicly called for the lynching of a culprit who vandalized a Confederate statue.
Vandalizing property is wrong, but hoping for people to be hung/lynched over it?? Way over the line!! What is wrong with us #moleg? pic.twitter.com/b0ulohvatQ
— Shamed Dogan (@ShamedDoganMO) August 30, 2017
In a Facebook post reacting to a news report about a vandal throwing paint on a Confederate monument in Springfield National Cemetery, State Rep. Warren Love wrote, “I hope they are found & hung from a tall tree with a long rope.”
The chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party, Stephen Webber, issued a tweet calling for Love’s resignation on the grounds that “calls for political violence are unacceptable.”
This is a call for lynching by a sitting State Representative. Calls for poltical violence are unacceptable. He needs to resign. #moleg pic.twitter.com/FZCNmsLLY7
— Stephen Webber 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@s_webber) August 30, 2017
This sentiment was echoed by House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty of Kansas City, who declared that while she opposes vandalism, “state Rep. Warren Love invoked a form of political violence used throughout the South to keep African-Americans subjugated for generations following the fall of the Confederacy, and for that he must resign,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Even a federal legislator stated that Love had crossed an important line. Sen. Claire McCaskill released a statement on Monday saying, “Representative Love should resign for his unacceptable comments.”
In defending himself, Love told the Post-Dispatch that his comment was “an exaggerated statement that, you know, a lot of times is used in the western world when somebody does a crime or commits theft.” He also insisted that he was motivated not by sympathy for the Confederacy but because “I’d of done the same statement if it’d been him [a Union general] in a national cemetery.”
Love’s claim to being neither racist nor pro-Confederate is somewhat undercut by his assertion that President Abraham Lincoln was the “greatest tyrant and despot in American history.” He also once made a reference to “the black Negro” and defended himself against charges of racism by talking about how he gets along well with “the minorities.”
