“An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a statement on the January 8 shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). “Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. …This is a sad day for our country.”
This from the man who, upon assuming the Speakership, said his first priority was repealing President Obama’s healthcare reform bill. It was this bill that Giffords had supported against bitter attacks and death threats from Republican Tea Party members.
And from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin–whose SarahPAC page, until the day of the shooting, depicted a map featuring cross-hairs over Giffords’ district: “My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.”
The shooting of Giffords–or some other Democratic legislator– was, in fact, entirely predictable. Among those who warned of such needless tragedy was Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).
“When Sarah Palin uses gun analogies and gun imagery when she makes her political point, she may believe that she’s engaging in metaphor,” said Weiner, who received an envelope of suspicious powder at his office. “But there are too many people who have twisted minds who might think that she’s being literal.”
Giffords may have seen the spectre of violence closing in on her. In April, 2010, she supported Rep. Raúl Grijalva after he had to close two offices when he and his staff received threats. He had called for a boycott of Arizona businesses in opposition to the state’s controversial immigration law.
“I am deeply troubled about reports that Congressman Grijalva and members of his staff have been subjected to death threats,” Giffords said. “This is not how we, as Americans, express our political differences. Intimidation has no place in our representative democracy. Such acts only make it more difficult for us to resolve our differences.”
But intimidation–and worse–does have a place among the tactics used by influential Republicans in the pursuit of absolute power:
• Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) yelled “baby killer” at Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on the House floor.
• Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: “You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
• Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said Tea Partiers had “every right” to use racist and homophobic slurs against Democrats, chalking it all up to Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.”
• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she wants her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
• Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
• Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
• Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.): “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
• Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.
• Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) the highest-ranking black lawmaker in the House, said he received an anonymous fax showing the image of a noose.
For more than 50 years, Republicans have vilified government–except, of course, when they are running it. (Then they have demanded absolute obedience and utmost devotion. When a member of the Dixie Chicks said she was ashamed that George W. Bush came from her home state of Texas, the group found itself facing boycotts and death threats.)
They have sought to convince Americans that Democrats are at least potential traitors, if not actual ones, ready to sell out the nation to the Communist menace.
(During the 1992 Presidential election, Republicans sought to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate,” owing to a visit he had taken to the Soviet Union during his college years.)
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, they tried to persuade voters that the Democrats were “soft on crime.” When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of the LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the Lyndon Johnson era.
When President Barack Obama set out to provide healthcare fo all Americans–and not simply the wealthy–Republicans tried to convince voters that he would use healthcare reform to murder vast numbers of their fellows (via “death panels,” in Sarah Palin’s infamous phrase).
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