The Politics of Hate

Motivating people to vote for a certain person or proposal, or to side with a particular argument, by playing on their fear and anger can have serious consequences. Whether or not the recent attempt to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, which resulted in the deaths of six people, can be directly tied to the politics of fear and hate, it certainly shows where such politics can lead.

It isn’t hard to figure out. If you set up the opposition as led by a foreign born and thus illegitimate President who is also a Muslim socialist/communist/fascist/intellectual anti-white hate monger, then you are making it easy for some people with less than normal inhibitions to think that votes and speeches aren’t the only way they should be ‘fighting’ the ‘enemy.’ If you talk of attempts to kill old folks and force homosexuality on the people at large, than it shouldn’t be a surprise that people want to fight the heath care reform outside of the halls of Congress with more than petitions, phone calls, and town hall meetings. When you talk about immigrants as threatening our jobs, our language, our security, our way of life, and even our very lives, than is it surprising that someone without mental incapacities might think that extreme measures were warranted to ‘fight’ the ‘enemy’. When you set the other side up as a godless enemy, someone will conclude they need to be killed. In addition to making real solutions harder to achieve, destroying any real chance at collaboration and cooperation, putting political and party interests over the interests of constituents and country, and painting the American people as incapable of understanding and responding to logic and reason … this irresponsible behavior actually puts lives at risk.

Regardless of what we learn in the coming weeks about this particular attack, I hope we learn that we cannot accept this kind of politics and these sorts of politicians. For a start in doing this, see A Consumer's Guide to Politics in this blog (there are two versions: long and abridged).