GOP Rep. Steve Scalise Widely Mocked for ‘Soviet-Style Impeachment Proceedings’ Poster
Republican Congressman Steve Scalise has been widely mocked for displaying an image on the House floor depicting a Russian landmark, a Soviet hammer and sickle and the line ’37 days of Soviet-style impeachment proceedings’.
Rep. @SteveScalise: "This is unprecedented. It's not only unprecedented, this is Soviet-style rules."
Full video here: https://t.co/tMd4pEAt8m pic.twitter.com/ugbmQHMSfQ
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 31, 2019
The mockery and memes were almost instantaneous. Many social media users pointed out that the image Scalise used is St. Basil’s Cathedral, a major center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity that was never the seat of the Soviet government. The Kremlin would have been a better choice. The two buildings are very near each other in Moscow.
https://twitter.com/hannahgais/status/1189922275010760705
Others pointed to the fact that Scalise seems to think the Soviet Union cared about rules and procedures, or that impeachment is anything like the Soviet system of justice, which often involved show trials, forced confessions and gulags.
Steve Scalise thinks Stalin could've been impeached lol pic.twitter.com/zBTyMuu1qK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 31, 2019
There were also, naturally, memes mocking Scalise’s use of the graphic and also his bizarre comparison to Soviet Russia.
SOVIET-STYLE IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS pic.twitter.com/nIirem8eaM
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) October 31, 2019
The image is likely to cause a proliferation of memes now that a blank template is available.
