In the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt against Gabrielle Giffords, there was an effort on the part of many to show restraint when it came to rhetoric about politics and violence. That grace period is now long gone. Republican pollster Frank Luntz, for example, is comfortable joking about using his car to run down President Obama. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) thought it was funny to say, “In Arizona, sometimes to gain office you have to have shot someone.” Rep. Paul Broun (R) of Georgia held a town-hall meeting last year in which a constituent asked, “Who is going to shoot President Obama?” — a line which reportedly prompted a “big laugh” from the crowd.
If you found yourself thinking in the wake of Rep. Giffords’ shooting that civility might once again become fashionable, that Republicans would refrain from the cheap and easy language of violence…. Yeah, well, back here in the real world, Republicans still think that talking and joking about violence directed against their ideological adversaries is all in good fun. “Surely”, they’ll tell you, “you can’t think that we’re advocating the use of violence?” Perhaps not directly, but if someone happens to employ violence on their behalf…well, that’s really too bad, but you can’t hold someone accountable for what someone else does with their words, right?
Wrong.
We live in a time of heightened emotion, where anger and frustration rest uneasy just below the surface. Most of us can process those emotions in appropriate and socially acceptable ways, but there are a small minority out there who can’t…and choose not to.
I supported the Paul Ryan budget and sent it over to the Senate. Now I live with some Senators, I yell at them all the time, I grabbed one of them the other day and shook him and I’d love to get them to vote for it — boy I’d love that. You know but other than me going over there with a gun and holding it to their head and maybe killing a couple of them, I don’t think they’re going to listen unless they get beat.
There were those who thought that in the wake of 9.11, America would come together as never before, that a new unity and sense of common purpose would move us forward. That may have been true enough for a few days, or weeks, perhaps even a month or two. Then we reverted to type and our hateful, vengeful, intolerant nature came roaring back as if it had never left. Indeed, an argument could be convincingly made that it returned in an even stronger and more virulent form.
I imagine that Rep. Sullivan thought he was just making a funny when he “joked” about shooting Democrats in the Senate. He might have been able to argue that he was engaging in playful humor…until making the gun gesture which his hand.
Given that Gabrielle Giffords was a member of the same House of Representatives that Sullivan calls home, one might think it reasonable to expect Sullivan to grasp the gravity of the situation. Then again, Sullivan appears to be as tone-deaf as he is ignorant of simple human decency.
Being on the other side of the ideological divide doesn’t necessarily make someone evil and/or less worthy of walking this Earth free of the fear of senseless violence. Advocating shooting your ideological doppelgangers, no matter how ignorant and unworthy you think them to be, is unacceptable and just plain wrong. At the very least, Sullivan should be censured by the House of Representatives and rebuked for his invocation of the language of violence.
That will never happen, of course. IOKIYAR: It’s OK if you’re a Republican. When a Democrat does it, it’s the worst sort of advocacy of violence and mean-spirited divisiveness imaginable. When a Republican does it, it’s standing up for American values and protecting Our Way of Life ©.
To his credit, Sullivan issued a pro forma apology. Perhaps he was sincere, perhaps not; that’s between him and whatever flavor of God he claims is behind him. From where I sit, I’d say he still has some work to do.
The next time a Congressman is shot- and it WILL happen- Rep. Sullivan can take solace in the fact that he’ll have blood on his hands.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
