DNC Chair Jamie Harrison Goes OFF on Republicans as Party of ‘Fear and Fascism’: ‘People Need to Stand the Hell Up’

Jamie Harrison appeared on Morning Joe to discuss President Joe Biden’s effort to build momentum for a Voting Rights bill and ended up calling out Republican members of Congress. This is not unto itself noteworthy, but the heated manner in which the DNC Chair laced into his political rivals merits another look.

Harrison’s Wednesday morning appearance came the day after Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris visited Atlanta, Georgia to promote a voting rights bill that received broad and bipartisan support when it was most recently passed in 2006, but 15 years later has become, like nearly everything else in these divided times, an issue with which there is little agreement among both sides of the proverbial aisle.

Joe Scarborough teed Harrison but by saying he didn’t understand how Republicans could vote unanimously for this in 2006. “We talk about this every day.,” he noted. “How is it that they could vote unanimously for it in 2006, and 16 of them, as you pointed out, voted to extend the voting rights act in 2006. Passed unanimously. Now, you can’t find a single one that’ll do the same thing.”

“It’s because the Republican party has transformed into the party of fear and fascism, Joe,” the DNC chair replied. “It is scary.”

“I never thought in my life that I would see a January 6th and not see Democrats and Republicans lock arms together to say, ‘You know what, never again will we allow something like this to happen,'” he continued. “But we’ve got Republicans right now who have turned a blind eye to January 6th.”

He continued to mock some of the dismissive rhetoric from Republican members of congress with “‘Oh, it was a regular tourist day,’ The hell it was! I mean, I have friends, people who I love dearly, basically forming weapons out of scissors and fireplace pokers because they were fearful for their lives. You have Republicans in the House and Senate saying that that didn’t happen!?”

He then pivoted back to voting rights, “You see what’s going on in each of these individual states, and you said it just now, that not only are they making it harder for people to register and stand in line, they’re trying to take away the power to count people’s legitimate votes. That’s not America. That’s Russia.”

“For us not to all stand up and say, ‘No, this will not happen,’ it’s shameful,” he added. “So history is going to record you. Where do you stand at this moment? Democrats, where do you stand? And it’s sad that all the weight is falling on the Democratic party in order to protect American democracy, but people need to stand the hell up.”

Watch above via MSNBC.