Miller-Meeks, a Republican who represents a politically competitive district in Iowa, voted for Jordan the first time but switched to vote for Representative Kay Granger, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, on Wednesday afternoon.
Since then, Miller-Meeks said in a statement, she has received “a barrage of threatening calls” in addition to multiple death threats. She added that the authorities have been notified and her office is fully cooperating.
“One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully,” she said. “I did not stand for bullies before I voted for Chairwoman Granger and when I voted for Speaker designee Jordan, and I will not bend to bullies now.”
It was not immediately clear who made the threats.
That’s really the defining characteristic of conservativism. There is no objective conservative idealism, only the defined self and its interests. Conservatives claim to favor low taxes and small government, but have no problem raising taxes on people who aren’t them or their donors, and will abuse government power to invade privacy or control economic influences to benefit themselves. Conservatives claim to be the party of “traditional morality” (which of course means whatever they happen to personally believe) but they will lie, cheat, fuck, steal, and kill as much as any other group, and will defend their members as long as they themselves are not victims of the transgressions.
I could write a book, but it boils down to egocentrism. If something benefits a conservative, it’s an important tradition, and if it does not benefit a conservative, then by golly we should get back to a time when it did.