OpenLeft: Violence and the right

[marmar]

Violence and the right
by: Mike Lux

Thu Mar 25, 2010 at 13:30


Rachel Maddow has been doing the best reporting and commentary there is on the widening cycle of violent rhetoric, threats, and, increasingly, crime being committed by right-wing extremists. Her shows the last couple of nights (here and here especially) have been remarkable, and her focus on this has begun to get the traditional media to start looking at it.

This is an important story as the implicit violence in the rhetoric of conservative politicians and pundits has continued to ratchet up. This kind of intentionally violent rhetoric- "Dreihaus is a dead man", "firing line", all the gun and noose references- is exactly what we were getting in the months before the McVeigh bombing in 1995, as Rachel did a good job of pointing out last night.

Anyone who has been a public figure in Democratic politics has gotten violent, threatening calls, letters, e-mails from right-wing extremists. When I mentioned going on the cruise with Maddow, someone with a rather obvious conservative world view e-mailed me saying they hoped that Rachel would push me over the side. Every time I have been in the public spotlight even a little bit- in my days as a PFAW spokesperson on the impeachment fight, in my time as a consultant for the Brady campaign, when I've done ads going after Bush and Cheney that got a lot of media attention- our office mailbox and voicemail have been full of threats, intimidation and obscenities, many assuming I'm Jewish so they threw in anti-Semitic stuff as well. Threats and intimidation just seem to come naturally to these folks. In fact, the right-wing extremists in this country have always had a dark and violent side- the Civil War, canings on the Senate floor, the KKK and White Citizens' Councils, the death and beatings and lynchings of civil rights activists, Father Coughlin's radio rants, the deaths at abortion clinics, Timothy McVeigh.

It's all part of a pattern that goes wide, deep, and steady throughout American history. There have been a smattering of violent lefties as well- a few school bombings and riots in the 1960s, some random anarchist violence a century ago- but nothing that was so intrinsic and deep in the progressive movement itself. Where this could become a crisis for the American political system is if the Republican party leadership decides that the violent extremists are too much a part of their base to distance themselves from them. They are coming dangerously close to that point now, embracing the teabaggers, adding more violence to their own rhetoric. If that's where we are going to in this country, we better hope that Democrats keep winning elections until the Republicans realize they need to do a little distancing from their crazies.


http://www.openleft.com/diary/18001/violence-and-the-right