They're Telling You What They Want

“The Republicans have begun to see that they have fallen into a trap of their own construction: the party of the rich, which catered to the yokels, is now in danger of being taken over by the yokels... Incoherent, celebrating violence, sentimental, paranoiac and resentful: it's all there cooking on the stove of high unemployment.”

— David Seaton

By Dan Hagen

Just listen to them. They’re telling you what they really want.

Whom did Fox News star Glenn Beck say he wanted to “kill with a shovel?” Whom did he “pray would burst into flames?” What remedy did Sharron Angle say would “turn the country around?”

On Fox News, on Aug. 6, 2009, Beck "joked" that he'd like to murder Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by poisoning her wine, then had the 
transcript scrubbed to hide his statement.
 Fox News host Bill O'Reilly suggested that the CIA should kidnap Senate Majority Leader Harry 
Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and perhaps even waterboard Pelosi, at a 
stop on his “Bold & Fresh” speaking tour on Jan. 23, 2010, in Westbury, NY.
 Fox News pundit Liz Trotta, while discussing the idea of assassinating Osama Bin 


Laden and Barack Obama, said, “Well ... both, if we could!” then laughed 
happily.

And in June 2012, outside the Montana state Republican Party convention, an outhouse labeled the “Obama Presidential Library” was covered in painted-on bullet holes.

But hey, no sweat. Talk is cheap, right? It’s all just a joke, right?

That’s what they said in January 2011 after U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Dee "Gabby" Giffords, who had been targeted in cross hairs by Sarah Palin, was in fact shot through the head.

So why did Palin remove the cross hairs she had aimed at Giffords' district immediately after the shooting? Why did she censor herself if — as she was busy lying — they were not cross hairs at all but “surveyors’ symbols?”

Fearing violence from Tea Party activists right after the shooting, Arizona Legislative District 20 Republican Chairman Anthony Miller and others tendered their resignations. If Tea Party threats of violence and bull's eye symbols are harmless metaphors, why did these Republicans resign?

The obscure Tides Foundation was brought up several times on Beck's show, characterized as part of what Beck identified as a conspiracy by Obama and left-wing organizations to spread socialism. Then Byron Williams, an anti-government gunman, engaged in a shootout with police in Oakland, CA, while he was on his way to target Tides and the ACLU.

The Phoenix minster Steven Anderson instructed his congregation during the summer of 2009 to “pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.” The next day, one of his congregants showed up at an Obama event with an assault rifle and a handgun.

The Pittsburgh man Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers in April 2009, telling friends he feared that Obama planned to confiscate weapons. He expressed fear about a supposed plan by FEMA to herd people into concentration camps. He had seen it discussed by Glenn Beck on Fox News.

The Tea Partier Greg Girard was charged in February 2010 with stockpiling weapons, and possessing explosive devices including tear gas and pepper ball canisters. Girard had just previously written online that Sarah Palin is on a “righteous mission from God.”

How about Jim Adkisson, that devoted fan of Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and O'Reilly who shot up that Unitarian Church on a quest to murder “liberals?” What on earth could have inspired him, do you think?

President Obama — the man the right wingers insanely accuse of trying to confiscate their guns — has actually and bravely spoken at public events where right-wing loons are running around armed, ranting and raving about “refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.”

On the other hand, the president whom Charles Pierce has dubbed our C-Plus Augustus, George W. Bush, had people arrested in July 2004 merely for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. And on the 4^th of July yet. Yes, wave that flag of freedom, right wingers.

Connect the obvious dots on any of this publicly and you cue the Tea Pity Party, which suddenly trades its snarls for whines, never wanting to take responsibility for the political violence it so eagerly gins up.