Elizabeth Warren speaks to reporters at MLK Breakfast in Boston (Gintautas Dumcius/Twitter).

Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke out on behalf of Rep. John Lewis, and normally I’d be fine with that, but on reading, there was a howling screech of brakes in the brain:

“Donald Trump hasn’t put his life on the line for anyone except Donald Trump,” Warren said. “John Lewis has earned the right to raise questions about [election] legitimacy.

“Earned the right.” No. No, no, no. This is a very bad sign of just how quickly fascist shit was normalised. Since when does anyone have to earn the right to criticize government? If that was the case, all those yapping republicans would have had to shut up over the last eight years. Not only that, but with the electoral college clusterfuck, the casual dismissal of 3 million votes, and all the highly questionable activities in Russia, who the hell wouldn’t be raising questions about the legitimacy of the election? (Not counting Trumpoids, these are not thinking people.) Rep. Lewis is absolutely right in raising questions, someone has to have the courage to do it. That said, as a citizen of this country, he has every right to ask all the questions he likes, this is not something which needs to be earned. Rep. Lewis is far from alone in raising these questions too.

I imagine Sen. Warren was trying to emphasize Rep. Lewis’s integrity and achievements, but this was not done well. We all need to take care of how we express ourselves, and to make sure we are not finding our language tumbling down the slippery slide of fascism.