County Legislature Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) recently took umbrage at a Blank Slate Media editorial that questioned Nassau Republicans’ “relative silence” about the safety of police following the attack of an armed mob incited by then-President Donald Trump on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Nicolello called the editorial “blatantly misleading,” noting he issued a statement “categorically condemning the action of those that engaged in the riot, violence and vandalism.”
Well, not quite.
Nicolello did call for the prosecution of those who committed criminal acts.
But as we pointed out in our editorial and what is still true today is that Nicolello has said nothing about the identity of those who assaulted the Capitol and the man who incited them.
Nicolello has also declined to answer a request from Blank Slate Media to comment on whether he believes Trump incited the riot and if the former president should have been convicted by the Senate for causing the insurrection.
He also did not respond when asked if he believes Joe Biden was elected president in a free and fair election.
It is true that Nicolello is the head of the Nassau County Legislature – not the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives.
But the attack against the Capitol was an assault against democracy in this country enabled by right-wing media and Republican leaders at every level of government who refused to state the obvious truth – that the election was not stolen as Trump still claims to this day.
This explained why, according to national polls, 65 percent of Republican voters believe Trump’s false claims that Biden “stole the election.”
Nicolello said in his letter to Blank Slate Media that the position he took on the assault of the Capitol was “identical” to the position he took in response to the violence and riots that took place across the country following the death of George Floyd.
But that’s the problem. The riots, although totally unacceptable, do not in any way compare to what took place at the Capitol.
In the words of then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.”
“They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election,” McConnell continued following the Senate’s impeachment vote.
The attack also took a heavy toll on police. At least 81 Capitol police officers sustained cracked ribs, smashed spinal disks, knife wounds and other injuries. One officer was killed in the attack. Two others committed suicide afterward.
About 65 D.C. police officers also suffered injuries, including several concussions from head blows from various objects, including metal poles ripped from inauguration-related scaffolding and even a pole with an American flag attached. One officer lost an eye.
This summer Nicolello along with many other Republicans joined the Blue Ribbon campaign to support police that he said was a “response to the attempt by extreme groups to vilify all police for the actions of a tiny few.”
One of the Republicans who joined Nicolello, state Assemblyman Ed Ra (R-Franklin Square), said in an op-ed article following Floyd’s death that he was “deeply concerned about the damaging rhetoric, radical actions and misguided policy proposals we’ve been hearing from the left.”
In other words, local Republicans say they launched a campaign to support police because of harsh rhetoric and police proposals with which they disagreed.
But when an armed mob carrying Confederate flags and wearing Camp Auschwitz T-shirts assaults police and threatens senators and congressmen in an effort to overturn the presidential election a single statement will not suffice.
We believe that the Blue Ribbon campaign was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by Republicans to counter the Black Lives Matter movement seeking equal treatment for Blacks from the police. But perhaps Ra and Nicolello were guided by their deep appreciation for police.
But where is that appreciation now?
To his credit, Ra did publicly state that he agreed with McConnell, who found Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol.
But Ra also agreed with McConnell and some other Senate Republicans, who used the excuse that Trump’s impeachment trial took place after he had left office to not convict the former president.
For the record, the Senate had already voted 55-45 to reject a motion by Sen. Rand Paul arguing that the impeachment trial was unconstitutional because Trump was no longer in office.
In doing so, the Senate majority agreed with most constitutional experts and maintained the possibility that Trump could be barred from ever holding office again.
The vote to acquit by all but seven Republican senators means that the person who incited a mob that, in McConnell’s words, “beat and bloodied our own police” in an effort to undermine one of the pillars of our democracy – the election process – went unpunished by the Senate.
To make matters worse, McConnell now says he would support Trump if he is the Republican nominee in 2024.
We’d like to know if Nicolello and Ra agree with McConnell.
We understand that these are difficult political questions for Nicolello, Ra and other Nassau County Republicans.
Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party because the large majority of Republican voters still support him. And officials who don’t support Trump face political retribution.
A handful of Republican senators and members of the House have refuted the big lie that the election was stolen and supported Trump’s impeachment and the nation’s democratic norms.
Their show of integrity was immediately met by attacks from Trump and his supporters with primary challenges almost certain to follow. But they have established a clear alternative to the Trump wing of the party based on supporting the Constitution.
This raises the question of which side Nicolello, Ra and other county Republicans will fall on – those who support democracy or those who don’t.
And how far their support of the police really goes.
