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Look, I'm a "progressive" as so many "conservatives" like to refer to me.
I don't blame Sarah Palin specifically for what happened in Tucson the other day. I don't believe that the blame for this rests squarely on her shoulders or imagine that the shooter was signed up for her twitter account or had a copy of her book that he kept under his pillow at night (after all, he said he likes literature and listed some fairly profound books) and that made him do it.
That said, Sarah Palin is the most obvious representation of a brand of particularly vicious, divisive, and scathing politics that has unfortunately become popular in the US today.
I know, I know: politics have always been messy, and a hundred years ago, the mudslinging was arguably worse. The Hearst papers could easily ruin not only the careers but also the lives of politicians - or anyone, for that matter - who William Randolph didn't happen to like. There was much less fact-checking going on because the resources weren't there. But in my lifetime (I'm 27), the last few years have seen the divisiveness come to a head.
I was not happy when I heard people refer to Bush as a "murderer" or "the world's worst terrorist" or crap like that; it simply wasn't true. He was an awful president and his election and relelection were not high points in American history, but the wangsting on the left about how America was doomed were over-the-top.
This was eclipsed by Obama's election. To be clear: I've never liked Obama, and I didn't vote for him. I feel like the last election was the proverbial "giant douche vs. turd sandwich" made real. But my god... the paranoia...
- Our guns are gone.
- Our freedom of speech is gone.
- White people will be subjugated.
- The entire nation will be socialized.
- He's actually a Muslim terrorist.
- He is amassing a secret police/nationalist army ala the Nazi brownshirts or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
- Etc.
The media are not politicians; they are the media. Their job should be to tell the facts, but this new era of "infotainment" has thrown journalistic integrity down the crapper and you really can't trust any major American news outlets these days. They cut and paste what sells, and what stirs peoples' emotions, sells.
I'm fed up with it. I don't hate any politicians in this nation, certainly not enough to wish that they'd die, but this is what I hear and read and see basically any time I care to dip into the political maelstorm here in this country, which I'm still very proud to be from and reside in.
I want to turn on the news and hear what's actually happening, not who I should hate, who I should "target."
The media and political pundits who have stooped to the level of using thinly-veiled language that clearly if not explicitly endorses violence against political or social opponents is responsible for having created an atmosphere in America where the unbalanced and unhinged feel like their beliefs are, or at least should be, acceptable in mainstream America. They are responsible for creating a growing subculture where psychosis is something to be proud of, where incidents like Tucson are what should happen, because we need an armed revolution to dethrone the current politicians.
Saturday was a sad day for America, and I hope that the majority of Americans can see it for that, and see it as the unfortunate zeitgeist of our times, rather than trying to figure out exactly which politician we can blame specifically for what happened. It wasn't one person - it was the whole climate.
Please, I have read hatefilled, angry slurs directed at Obama almost daily here at CD. I guess it's ok to constantly malign our President, going so far as to equate him with the Anti-Christ but one angry comment directed at a figure on the Right is deemed unacceptable.
Are some on the Right being completely obtuse or is it just blatant hypocrisy?
Please, I have read hatefilled, angry slurs directed at Obama almost daily here at CD. I guess it's ok to constantly malign our President, going so far as to equate him with the Anti-Christ but one angry comment directed at a figure on the Right is deemed unacceptable.
Are some on the Right being completely obtuse or is it just blatant hypocrisy?
I don't think this will hurt her with her hard core base, but for everyone else...I agree with the article that she's going to have to walk very carefully on this one. People seem to love her or hate her--not much in between. How this issue sorts out for her may be a non issue simply because she's so divisive that she never had a shot beyond the primary to begin with, and that was questionable. I imagine some of her republican opponents are going to capitalize on portraying her as too radical and not presidential in her behavior--they're going to want to position themselves as senior statesmen. She can't hold up to that.
Saturday was a sad day for America, and I hope that the majority of Americans can see it for that, and see it as the unfortunate zeitgeist of our times, rather than trying to figure out exactly which politician we can blame specifically for what happened. It wasn't one person - it was the whole climate.
I don't think it was a political climate issue at all.
I think he was just crazy, and his motivations were particular to him in his own psychotic world. I dont think the killing is related in any way to ongoing issues in wider society.
It was just a sick kid who got fixated on her after they had met previously.
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