Jamelle Bouie’s newsletter makes an important observation about the state of our democracy. As I watched what they did to that brave transwoman in Montana fighting for her right to …well, exist it just shocks me how cruel these people are. It’s the same look on those people’s faces as those above. It’s an ugly, ugly display. And as Bouie explains, it’s a threat to all of us, our democracy in general, as they use whatever power they have to silence dissent: On Tuesday, I wrote about the Republican effort to limit the reach and scope of initiatives and referendums as another instance of the party’s war on majority rule. One thing I wanted to include, but couldn’t quite integrate into the structure of the column, was a point about the recent use of legislative expulsion to punish Democratic lawmakers who dissent from or challenge Republican majorities. We saw this in Tennessee, obviously, where Republicans expelled two Democratic members — Representatives Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin J. Pearson of Memphis — for loudly supporting a youth protest for gun control from the statehouse floor using a bullhorn. We saw another example this week, in Montana, after State Representative Zooey Zephyr, a transgender woman, spoke out against a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors. Calling her comments (“If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on…