General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"When They Fantasize About Killing You, Believe Them"
Link to tweet
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/when-they-say-they-want-kill-you-believe-them/619724/
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Trump once darkly hinted about Second Amendment people taking some unspecified actions, implicitly murderous, to protect gun rights if he lost to Clinton. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia now warns that if the government sends health-care workers door-to-door to encourage more Americans to get vaccinated, they will find that southerners love our Second Amendment rights, and were not real big on strangers showing up on our front door they might not like the welcome they get.
Before she was elected, Greene once liked a Facebook comment that said to remove Nancy Pelosi from office, a bullet to the head would be quicker. On tour with Greene, her Republican ally Representative Matt Gaetz declared, We have the Second Amendment in this country and I think we have an obligation to use it, helpfully adding that the amendments purpose is maintaining within the citizenry the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government.
The former Trump-campaign chair and White House strategist Steve Bannon suggested that Anthony Fauci should be beheaded. And the Trump-friendly lawyer Joseph diGenova urged that a senior federal cybersecurity official be taken out at dawn and shot.
These politicians and pundits are playing the familiar political game of outbidding, always taking rhetoric to the next level in order to gain attention and become the champion of a passionate group. Another lesson from the Middle East is that words always matter.
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Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)with an appreciable level of amusement in many cases.
That aside, wingnut politicians throwing love to the '2A' is the absolutely most politically 'cheap' way to appeal to a sizable group.
For most Democrats to really like a politician, they have to be 'correct' on a large slate of issues, being all good on one issue is never enough.
Not true with the great swath of 1 issue voters on the right for whom Gun Humping is 90% of what they vote on.
dalton99a
(81,073 posts)Blaukraut
(5,689 posts)Thankfully, most bullies are all bluster. That said, they're really only dangerous when they're in a crowd. That's when I think things get out of control.
crickets
(25,896 posts)keep_left
(1,750 posts)...a term coined by author David Neiwert, who has been writing about the increasingly inflammatory language used by the radical right. I think it's been going on at least since the heyday of Newt Gingrich in the '90s.
I believe the term "stochastic terrorism" goes back to an old DailyKos post that Thom Hartmann read on his radio show.
doc03
(35,148 posts)Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)LetMyPeopleVote
(144,005 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I really do. Their fingers are getting itchy and they are just waiting for "The Command". I don't think it's a matter of if, but when.