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Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, says Republican lawmakers deserve some blame after a group protesting coronavirus lockdown hung an effigy of him outside the Kentucky capitol on Sunday.
Though Republicans and Democrats alike condemned the demonstration, Beshear laid blame on Republican lawmakers in his state, who he said contributed to the tense atmosphere at lockdown protests.
"You cannot fan the flames and condemn the fire," Beshear said Tuesday, according to the Courier-Journal.
"Let's start by calling it what it was and what it is, actions aimed at creating fear and terror," Beshear said, describing the protesters' actions.
A Second Amendment rally on Sunday morphed into a protest against coronavirus lockdowns, where a doll with a photo of Beshear’s face on it and a noose around its neck was tied to a tree. A sign affixed to the doll’s shirt read "Sic semper tyrannis," or "thus always to tyrants,” a phrase that John Wilkes Booth claimed he shouted after assassinating President Abraham Lincoln.
"I will not be afraid. I will not be bullied. And I will not back down," Beshear said of the protest.
He called it "a celebration of assassination on our Capitol grounds."
Beshear claimed rhetoric by GOP legislators had spurred the hostility at Sunday’s protest. He said that a couple of Republican lawmakers had attended a similar protest in early May and gave speeches slamming Beshear with extreme language.
"Standing in front of a radical militia group, these elected officials claimed that people including me aren't Christian, and even told them that people wanted babies to be murdered," Beshear added. "What do you think was gonna happen after throwing out those type of claims to this group? Shouldn't they have known what was going to happen?"
At an earlier rally, state Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, called Beshear a "hypocrite" for deeming abortion clinics, but not churches, essential businesses. State Rep. Savannah Maddox, R- Dry Ridge, had said Kentucky’s government made people "prisoners in your own homes" by restricting where they can and can't go.
Maddox said she wasn’t at Sunday’s rally and she joins her caucus "in condemning all acts of hatred in the context of political discourse,” according to the Washington Post.
Other high-profile Republicans quickly denounced the effigy. Kentucky House Speaker David Osborne said he and other Republicans were “outraged” by the violent imagery on capitol grounds.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the protesters’ actions were “unacceptable.” "As a strong defender of the First Amendment, I believe Americans have the right to peacefully protest," he said in a statement. "However, today's action toward Governor Beshear is unacceptable. There is no place for hate in Kentucky.”
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Daniel Cameron, the state’s Republican attorney general, called the imagery "sickening."
"We have to learn to disagree without threats of violence," he tweeted Sunday.
At least one of the protesters lost his job over his involvement.
Neil Huffman Automotive Group, which runs several car dealerships in Kentucky, said Tuesday the company had fired an employee involved in the incident after an internal investigation.
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"There is no place for hate or intolerance in any of our dealerships," the company said in a statement.
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