In 1994, Newt Gingrich's GOPAC memo told Republicans to use words like "sick" and "unpatriotic" to describe Democrats, which quickly became the fundamental strategy of his party. Since 2001, however, the Right has been ramping things up further. Writers like Coulter, Malkin, Savage and their ilk get rich from books where they call anyone who disagrees with them traitors, Nazis, and worse.
Glenn Beck says that progressivism is a cancer that is "eating our Constitution" - and is meant to - and gets cheered by conservative leaders. When he made his statement about the death threats mentioned in the article I sent you - and the others that weren't discussed in it - the reason he gave for speaking out against violence was that "it's exactly what [Democrats] want."
Sarah Palin's Facebook page has an ad with crosshairs drawn over the districts of the Democratic legislators she's chosen to have her followers target in November.
John Boehner's statement on the threats? “I know many Americans are angry over this health care bill, and that Washington Democrats just aren’t listening.”
And Nigel Coleman, leader of the Danville Tea Party in Virginia, defended Mike Troxel's posting of the address of Virginia Representative Periello's brother (in the mistaken belief that it was Rep. Periello's address), and when he learned that it was actually the brother's address, wrote “Oh well, collateral damage.”
Mr. Coleman had recently planned to burn Periello and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in effigy, although the stunt was eventually canceled.
Timothy McVeigh used to be on the extreme fringes of the Right. Now his spiritual descendants are moving toward its mainstream.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
