This is from the "2009 Future of American Health Survey" from the RNC. Not O'Reilly, or Beck, or talk radio, or one of the deluded fools protesting outside political events with a swastika sign in one hand and an automatic weapon in the other. The RNC itself. Democrats no longer want to kill your baby or your grandmother by denying them medical care, they want to kill you, if they find out you're a Republican.
But then the above is pretty much the least of the symptoms of how crazy the Right has gotten. Angry, armed mobs gathering outside political events and sending people inside to disrupt them. Senator Inhofe claiming the country is "approaching revolution"; other members of Congress listening to those who stand up at their events and label themselves "proud right-wing terrorists" or threaten to "take a gun to Washington" to deal with "little Hitler" Obama (Obama's death threats are already 400% what Bush's were, BTW), statements to which the politicians respond to with mild disagreement at best and outright egging on at worst (apparently "right-wing terrorist"="great American" to Congressman Herger).
In fact, the "Little Hitler" clip is illustrative of the larger problem, what I believe we'll call McCain's Fallacy. Senator Grassley [1] listens to a man telling the audience that the only thing stopping him going to Washington with his gun to sort out Obama is lack of a mob to do it with, and realises things have gone too far. His objection may be to the suggestion Obama is "like Hitler" as oppose to, you know, heading to the capital with an armed mob to sort him out, but he knows a line has been crossed, and he makes a quick effort to walk it back.
Having done so, though, he then goes back into spinning the sort of radioactive BS that got everyone so worked up in the process. Grassley, just like McCain during the campaign, knows you can't let people threaten death on their political opponents, but also thinks that as long as you object to the idea (in however a milquetoast fashion) when directly presented with it, you're OK deliberately fanning the flames of such insanity the other 99.99% of the time. And let's be clear on this point, you can disagree with the specifics of the healthcare plan without it meaning you're just operating out of ignorance and a head full of lies (I mean, from what I can tell it's a far from perfect piece of legislation, and it's only liable to get worse). Hell, you can not want healthcare reform at all and that still be the case [2]. But to be so scared of the very idea of healthcare reform that you form angry, armed mobs and/or threaten to start assasinating people would have to mean that you're either seriously disturbed, or you're view of the current bill is massively, ludicrously skewed, which means you've been lied to.
Knowing all that, Grassley is lying to his constituents, as part of an overarching strategy. They know these lies are going to inflame outrage and threats of violence, and they actively encourage the former and refuse to comment on the latter unless presented with it directly, as though their responsibility for what they know they have created only goes so far as their dealings with it on a one to one basis. This does not absolve them of guilt. This is exactly why I got so wound up by the idiots who claimed McCain was a man of honour because he took time out of calling Obama a secret homosexual Muslim terrorist militant to tell people not to threaten to have Obama killed. Yeah, real classy.
Of course, as ugly as McCain's campaign got (and it got really fucking ugly), things seem to be a good deal worse right now. It's difficult to write about what's going on without resorting to hyperbole, but all of this smells of an unprecedented and incredibly dangerous dynamic.
[1] Who is both a poisonous dissembler and one of the Gang of Six who will determine the fate of healthcare, as they allegedly attempt to hammer out a bipartisan compromise over healthcare. Of course, this will be compromise which Grassley has already stated he won't vote for, or indeed read (Inhofe's said the same thing, apparently the bill is a bit too long to make it worth knowing exactly how Americans might benefit from a "Yay" vote).
[2] Though as always, anyone who does think that needs to start each speech or article with "Despite there being 47 million uninsured people in this country and 18 000 yearly deaths because of that, I think we shouldn't try to change anything because...". Healthcare reform would help a shit load of people, and no-one gets to object to reform without admitting the cost of things remaining as they are. Let us not forget reason 1 on the Why Most Conservatives Are Wretched list: they want to pursue paths that will make life difficult for an awful lot of people, and rather than justify why that sacrifice is necessary, they pretend it doesn't exist.
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