Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale, as seen during a recording of Thursday’s meeting.
Republican Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale was called a racist by Democrat Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh during a virtual public meeting Thursday, after Gale made his feelings known on the breaching of the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon by pro-Trump supporters in an attempted insurrection.
During the meeting, Gale also referenced his censure last summer by Arkoosh and Democrat Kenneth E. Lawrence Jr., a result of a June 1, 2020 letter, which used the county seal, that criticized the civil unrest in Philadelphia the weekend prior as “urban domestic terror” and referred to Black Lives Matter as a “radical left-wing hate group.”
“I have consistently been a voice for law and order and spoken out against protests that devolve into riots, violence and destruction. For doing so, I have been smeared, censured, and physically targeted,” Gale said during Thursday’s session. “Now, politicians and the media are suddenly outraged after having spent the last year justifying, excusing, and often ignoring the unrest and the lawlessness that destroyed nearly every major city in the nation."
Gale called it a purposeful and appalling “double standard” and said he would be praying for our nation “more than ever because God knows we need it.”
“I have to clarify one aspect of your statement: You are a racist,” Arkoosh responded. “You were censured by this Board of Commissioners because you used a County letterhead to publish racist statements that left the employees of our county government and the 22 percent of your constituents who don’t look like you uncertain about where this County commission stood on matters of race,” Arkoosh said.
Gale said that it was his letterhead and not that of the county Board of Commissioners. The letter had the County seal at the top of the page with “Joseph C. Gale, Commissioner, Board of Commissioners, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania” underneath it.
“It was my letterhead. That’s a desperate attempt to peg me as a racist, which people know I’m not,” he said. “I spoke the truth and I had the courage to speak the truth throughout the entire year, and many more elected officials should have stepped up and done the same.”
Commissioner Lawrence Jr., who chairs the county election
board, remained silent on the matter.
Gale’s letter stated Black Lives Matter “screams racism not to expose bigotry
and injustice, but to justify the lawless destruction of our cities and
surrounding communities.”
“Their objective is to unleash chaos and mayhem without consequence by falsely claiming they, in fact, are the victims,” Gale wrote.
The letter stated police officers are afraid to do their job of protecting people and property, and they have been demonized and degraded by the radical left, fostered by a “complicit media” that pushes a “bogus narrative” of police brutality and white racism. Gale called out Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw as “sympathetic.”
“Frankly, the name Outlaw fits her to a tee,” Gale wrote.
He demanded law and order and enforcement of the law so police cannot give space to lawbreakers.
“If you give an inch, they will take a foot,” he wrote.
Gale’s letter caused two demonstrations in Norristown, a protest outside his Plymouth Meeting home, and demands for him to resign through a Change.org petition, which has garnered more than 88,000 signatures in seven months.
The Capitol breach caused Commissioners to cancel their coronavirus update Wednesday afternoon, and they took to Twitter instead to voice their frustrations.
Lawrence Jr. tweeted that that insurrection was “a predictable travesty” and told The Times Herald that it was treason and sedition.
“They have literally blocked Congress from performing their constitutional duty today and I am shocked but not surprised. The president has laid all of this out,” he told the newspaper.
Arkoosh tweeted that Trump had an obligation to tell his supporters to stand down and told The Times Herald that she was extremely disappointed that citizens would storm the Capitol over a legitimate election.
“I believe that President Trump has been signaling this to his supporters for weeks now,” Arkoosh told the newspaper.
See also:
Editorial: Wentz Church Leadership Condemns Statements Made By Commissioner Joe Gale
Local Elected Officials Sign Statement Condemning ‘Racist Remarks’ Made By Commissioner Joe Gale
County Commissioners Spar Over Wearing Masks, Social Distancing
Gale: Totalitarian Lockdown ‘Cure’ Is Worse Than Illness, ‘Common Sense’ Is Key To Fighting COVID-19
Demonstrations Against Racial Injustice Held In Lansdale, North Wales And Abington-Lansdale Hospital
