Violence

SUMMARY

Ever since the Civil War, the Republican party has done all it can to question the patriotism of Democrats, calling them the party of rebellion after the Civil War, calling them communists, calling them soft on the Soviets, soft on crime, soft on terrorism. They have no compunction about demonizing Democrats as evil and deserving of every conceivable attack. They turned up the temperature in this regard during the Clinton era, spending eight years and $50 million trying to destroy Clinton personally, but they didn’t really turn it up to eleven until the scary black Muslim Marxist from Kenya became commander in chief in the middle of two wars.

Now they are more and more open about espousing the notion that Democrats, particularly Obama, are so evil and so dangerous that violence, vigilantism, lone-wolf terrorism, revolution are all justified. This ramped up particularly during the health reform debate: jokes about assassination, attacks, vandalism, threats aimed at children, intimidation, stalking, deliberate disruption of legislative sessions and town halls. And this was with the public support of Republican leaders: their argument is that if Democrats dare to actually govern, they should expect violence.

DETAILS

The GOP has spent three years tearing down the wall between political debate and violence. When the health care debate reached fever pitch, the Republicans and their allies began hinting that Obama was such a clear and present danger to America that violence was okay. It began with hints, jokes, insinuations.

The “grab your guns and destroy Obama” became an internet game; conservatives sold merchandise containing a psalm praying for Obama’s death, on bumper stickers, T-shirts, toys; Fox did a story on Planned Parenthood by creating a logo putting the organization in rifle crosshairs. A teacher in Alabama taught his kids geometry with an example that involves assassinating the President: "If you're in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president”. Even GOP leaders were joking about killing Pelosi, killing Reid.

Then things get more serious. The Republican party spends considerable money to send vandals to town hall events with explicit orders to cause disruption, rattle speakers, stop real debate from happening, make threats, vandalize the site. Activists are told to “stop” cars with Obama stickers – will people soon be afraid to put an Obama sign on their car or in front of their house, for fear of vandalism? Activists make so many threats against Congressmen and their families – “make their kids afraid to come out of the house!” – that the police cancel town halls, which means Congressmen can’t do their core business, talking issues with their constituents. Democratic facilities are vandalized. A campaign of murder, violence, vandalism, harassment, intimidation, stalking is aimed at against abortion clinics. Armed thugs arrive at Obama events. A Democratic Congresswoman is shot in the head.

They’re developing a pattern of threatening little girls. A girl asked Obama a question in a town hall, and Fox News identified who her family is and where they live – happy hunting! Later a high school student, interested in student government, became so fed up with Michele Bachmann’s come-and-go relationship with facts, history and reality, that she challenged Bachmann to a debate or fact-test on the Constitution, US history and civics. The tea party people took offense. They called the 16-year-old child a whore and threatened her with rape and other violence; they threatened to put her address on the web, and sent threats to her school also. A local media outlet had planned to interview her on camera, but her frightened father cancelled it.

Rather than back down and consider what they were doing, the rightwing folks characteristically doubled down their bets. "Another Liberal @#S% want to be, maybe she needs to be gangbanged at her local ghetto, I bet that will make her parents proud, especially if she gets pregnant with a mulatto baby….Amy Myers is a Jew vermin from NJ who hates America and loves Obama …This disrespectful little twit needs a good spanking. She lacks intelligence, wit, respect and common sense. On second thought she needs a good beating." Then attacks intensified against the father, and then his employer. Then they denied the threats against the girl had been made. Then they said it was okay to publish the employer’s name, ridiculing those who complained.

Vigilante groups and militias proliferate across the country, recruiting soldiers and policemen to resist the allegedly illegal Obama “regime”, stockpiling guns, launching attacks, making “citizen’s arrests”, shooting policemen, attacking government buildings, harassing gay bars, seeking to provoke violence in the hope of creating martyrs to the cause. Neatly enough, one of their heroes, Rand Paul, is demanding that people who even listen to speeches advocating the overthrow of the government should be thrown in prison: how about the militia boys, then?

And that’s not the most scary part. The truly scary part is that the GOP and their allies have not only condoned all this: in many cases they actually organized it. GOP leaders have been calling for shooting and revolution, using “lock and load” metaphors, bussing protesters in to cause riots in town halls. A Republican said of his sportsman’s caucus “We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition!“ And a number of very senior GOP leaders said openly that they felt the Democrats deserved to be targeted with violence and threats, because they had the nerve to pass bills that Republicans don’t like.

And here is where terrorist tactics can go all the way to the political summit. This bears repeating: Michele Bachmann, presumptive presidential candidate, urged supporters to march into Congress with the express purpose of frightening Pelosi and other Democrats into changing their votes. “I think that will absolutely scare these members of Congress so much that Pelosi will not get the votes and it will kill the bill. I think it could be dead for 10 years. Why won’t we? Why won’t we go for broke?” She specifically wanted the “anger” directed at the Speaker, Pelosi. In other words, trying to subvert government by the threat of violence against leaders, aka terrorism. Bachmann, terrorist, president?