Four years after the Tree of Life shooting, Pa. voters denounced extremism. Now it’s the GOP’s turn.

On Election Day, Democrats were nervous.

As I moved through my very progressive district in Southwestern Pennsylvania, I saw anxiety on every face, if not outright despondency.

Facing historic headwinds during this midterm election, my party was expected to fall short nationwide, and the consequences would be dire in Pennsylvania. Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor, had spent the last six months cozying up to white Christian nationalists and sowing doubt in our electoral system. He had a close relationship with the founder of Gab, a social media platform that hosts antisemitic content.

Mastriano was down in the polls, but even if he lost, there were still Republicans on the ballot in Pennsylvania who refused to call out his explicit turn toward hatred.

» READ MORE: How Mastriano sank deeper into antisemitism | Will Bunch Newsletter

Of course, Mastriano did lose his bid for governor, and he lost big. Pennsylvania voters resoundingly rejected extremism. Our next governor will be a Democrat and a Jewish man, Josh Shapiro. Not only did we elect back-to-back Democratic governors for the first time since the 1950s, but we also flipped a Republican Senate seat and likely flipped the Republican-controlled state House (results are still being tallied) for the first time in more than a decade.

But even as we enjoy the exhilaration of having protected our democracy and stood up for the values of tolerance and multiculturalism, I know that Democrats alone cannot fend off the dark forces that propelled Mastriano to the top of the Republican ticket.

This threat arose from within the GOP, and it must also be extinguished from within.

The dangers of antisemitism are not theoretical. My district includes the Tree of Life building, the site of an antisemitic attack almost exactly four years ago that left 11 of my friends and neighbors dead.

“This threat arose from within the GOP, and it must also be extinguished from within.”

There was a moment after the attack when it appeared that Pennsylvania’s lawmakers could unite to fight the scourge of antisemitism together.

At a special joint session of the General Assembly months after the attack, with survivors and family members of those killed looking on, I told the story of Squirrel Hill, the neighborhood where I grew up and the heart of Jewish life in Western Pennsylvania. I shared the stories of the 11 souls taken from us as they gathered to worship, and I called on my colleagues to take action to address the clear, growing threat of hate-fueled violence.

Democrats and Republicans got to their feet and applauded.

But that warmth and enthusiasm did not extend to any action.

Despite the assurances of support that day, my legislation to address hate crimes for the first time in decades has gathered dust as the Republican majority blocked consideration or even hearings. I worked closely with the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and gained its endorsement for the legislation, I scheduled meetings with Republicans that included Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, and I reached out to individual GOP members, but all I got back was silence. Out of the 113 Republican members of the Pennsylvania House, only one signed on to my bill — and she’s retiring.

When Mastriano’s shoestring campaign paid $5,000 to Gab, the site that hosted antisemitic content from the Tree of Life shooter, Republicans said nothing. PayPal, GoDaddy, Medium, Stripe, and Visa all terminated their relationships with Gab.

Pennsylvania Republicans’ silence spoke volumes.

When Mastriano accepted a $500 contribution from Gab founder Andrew Torba, the man who bragged about spikes in Gab traffic after the killings in my district, I heard still not a word from my Republican colleagues who professed a unified stand against hate.

When I spoke out about the dangers of Mastriano’s hate-normalizing campaign, I became a target myself of vile antisemitic threats and slurs on Gab.

Through it all, my Republican colleagues in the Pennsylvania General Assembly resisted calls to even make a disapproving statement.

As much as we would all like to think that absurd, unaddressed conspiracy theories about Jews or Black people or elections will simply fizzle out on their own, we can see quite clearly that the opposite is true: These lies fester and multiply, and they inspire violence.

The commonwealth has seen a dramatic increase in hate crimes, with 255 reported last year, according to data maintained by the Pennsylvania State Police. That’s more than any other year since cases began being tracked in 1997, and almost as many as the previous three years combined.

The forces of intolerance don’t rest between elections, and neither can we. My hope is that electoral defeat can accomplish what violence against my community could not: a decisive separation of the Pennsylvania Republican Party from dangerous extremists.

Voters made their voices heard on Tuesday. Will the GOP finally join the table and unify against intolerance, or continue to fan the flames of hatred?

Dan Frankel, a Democrat, represents the 23rd District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.