We are over Chesterfield State Sen. Amanda Chase and her middle age Barbie twin, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Sen. Chase deserved to be censured last week by the Virginia Senate — and Rep. Greene needs to be expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives — because of their far right views espousing violence and sowing seeds of insurrection against the U.S. government.

Both would love nothing more than to have their misguided supporters bring a gun to a ballot box fight. But we know — especially from the long struggles of African-Americans in this nation — that violence isn’t the path to meaningful change or to getting what you want.

While both Sen. Chase and Rep. Greene claim to be patriots of the highest order, neither has embraced the results of the 2020 presidential election or reconciled themselves to the fact that their candidate lost in a fair and democratic process. For whatever twisted reasoning, they still believe former President Trump won and that the election was stolen or that fraud was committed somewhere among the 81.2 million votes that made Democrat Joe Biden the victor.

Sen. Chase, who like Rep. Greene, has cozied up to QAnon and its outrageous conspiracy theories, even publicly said that the former president should declare martial law, overturn the election results and stay in office.

Sen. Chase and Rep. Greene refuse to acknowledge that their candidate launched dozens of post-election legal challenges in courts around the country and lost. To be exact, the Trump campaign and Republican officials filed at least 42 lawsuits challenging the election results in six states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and he has won none. He is still America’s biggest loser despite his own grandiose notions of self.

Still, the former president used the system set up by our Consti- tution to contest the legitimate outcome of a fair and free election and he lost. That apparently is of no importance to Sen. Chase and Rep. Greene, who simply need to sit down and shut up.

Instead, Sen. Chase appeared and spoke at the rally in Washington on Jan. 6 in which she, former President Trump and others sparked a mob to rush the U.S. Capitol with the stated intent to block the certification of Electoral College votes enabling Mr. Biden to become president.

In their own words caught on video, the violent mob was ready to kidnap, hang, and/or put a bullet through the heads of former Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other lawmakers they hate. Their insurrection at the U.S. Capitol led to the deaths of five people, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer who was beaten with a fire extinguisher.

Neither Sen. Chase nor Rep. Greene has apologized to their colleagues, to their constituents or, in Sen. Chase’s case, to the people of Virginia for continuing to push a false narrative about the election and for their roles in inciting the D.C. coup attempt against a duly elected government. They also have not denounced the white supremacists and anti-Semitic hate groups who sought violence at the Capitol.

Already alienated from the Republican Party, Sen. Chase has been censured by the state Senate, stripped of her sole committee assignment and lost all seniority built up since she took office in January 2016. That’s the first — and correct — step in dealing with her.

We applaud the 24 Virginia senators who voted to censure Sen. Chase. Three GOP senators — surprisingly clear-thinking in this instance — voted with their Democratic colleagues to censure her in a 24-9 vote. Those Republicans are Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment of James City County, Sen. Bryce Reeves of Spotsylvania and Sen. Jill Vogel of Fauquier.

The nine who voted against her censure were all Republicans. Another six showed no backbone and didn’t cast a vote.

Until we all — Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party or no party — stand up against violence and those who aim to overthrow our government, our democracy will remain in peril.

These are not easy times. In fact, they are dangerous times. But we cannot let madmen and madwomen who cling to a harmful, racist and narrow vision of an America of the past destroy what we all profess to believe in — democracy.

Until Sen. Chase, Rep. Greene, former President Trump and others are held to account, our nation will never move forward unhampered and unencumbered.