Beyond The Arizona Shootings: The Real Danger of Divisive, Vitriolic Politics (Miller)

Cartoon: R.J. Matson (St Louis Post-Dispatch)James Miller of Dissected News writes for EA:

The tragedy of last Saturday's mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, killing six and wounding 14 including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has brought a self-reflective moment in the US, analysing what could have prompted the alleged gunman, Jared Loughner, to target Giffords and then fire into the crowd.

However, approaches blaming the conservatives, pushing back against the liberals, or letting both of off the hook miss the true danger of our divisive, vitriolic politics.

While the motives of Loughner are still unknown, although he showed an interest in Giffords since 2007, many are pointing fingers at  fear-mongers within political parties and media, for the contribution to a culture of violence, sometimes putting cross-hairs on Giffords and others. Republicans are responding. On MSNBC, New York Congressman Michael Grimm said that the violent act was committed by a single mentally unstable man --- to blame this on Sarah Palin, or any other politician, is ridiculous.

For those on the political left, however, it is hard to ignore a logical chain of events: imagery of violence (Palin's "Don't retreat, reload") and open revolution, combined with the specific references to Giffords , make the blame crystal-clear who to blame. While most of these critics agree that politicians are not specifically encouraging violence, their words have power, and in their effect on the "wrong" person, lives may be lost.

Others have offered a more conciliatory reproach of the heated politics . The New York Times' Matt Bai said that politicians are caught up with the hyperbole of the times. He gave several examples of how both Republicans and Democrats are both to blame. (However, the best response to this argument, by Jonathan Weiler, argued that the blame still lies primarily with the Republicans for the toxic discourse.)

In this important dialogue about the decency of our politics, an important point may be missed. The heated rhetoric, the hate speech, the shock-jocks, and the vitriolic politicians, have already claimed a prominent victim.

The truth.

The Greek dramatist Aeschylus wrote that the first casualty of war is truth, and if politics is war "by other means",  in the last decade it has moved from a chivalric duel to a scorched-earth campaign. Republicans and Democrats are both called to arms with slogans like "Take Our Country Back," and political debate on almost any issu, has become increasingly divisive. The hyperbole is contributing to a sense of panic for both sides of the political spectrum, in a general atmosphere that the nation is crumbling and it's the other guys fault.  

According to the sheriff handling the Tucson shootings, the state has become a "Mecca for prejudice and bigotry".  But it is not just Arizona: the American people have been trained by the media and the politicians that the enemy is everywhere. All Democrats are American-hating socialists, all Republicans are gun-nut big-business fascists.

When  fellow Americans become "enemies at home", then political progress is destined to fail, and politicians are destined to become increasingly extreme.  All issues are a slippery slope, another potential loss for freedom.

Here are a few examples of how rhetoric has gotten out of hand: George Bush did not lie to the American people to go to war for oil. He did not lead us into war with Iraq so that we could lose thousands of soldiers, trillions of dollars, and still fail to establish a model democracy in the Middle East. He certainly had alternative, secret reasons for deposing Saddam Hussein, but there is no evidence that he thought this action would weaken his country.

Barack Obama is not a socialist. As far as I can tell he likes to rework Republican pro-business packages and bail out banks without taking control. His health care plan is less "socialized" than Nixon's. He is definitely not going to take away America's guns, as the privilege for all to bear arms has thrived under Obama and the 111th Congress.

General David Petraeus did not "betray us" when he gave President Bush and the Congress advice about how a surge of troops would improve the situation in Iraq.

All of the labels listed above are oversimplified demonisation, preventing the pursuit of solutions to problems for several reasons.  It is hard to work with a leader on whom we've drawn a Hitler moustache. And, by constantly claiming that the sky is falling, we've become the boy who cried wolf.

We've missed the occasions when the sky really is falling, or when our leaders really have earned their strongest rebukes.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney is arguably guilty of treason for betraying the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame over a political dispute with her husband, who disputed some of the evidence for going to war in Iraq.  Cheney also admitted that he was behind the waterboarding decisions, and he has distorted the reasons for authorizing war and torture.

But because liberals had already decided that Cheney and Bush were Hitler/Stalin, their objections had already been discounted by many, so all the yelling and screaming in the world could not stop these serious crimes.  And with issues like tax cuts for the wealthy, differences of opinion on environmental policy, and trickle-down economics, liberals removed the possibility of discussion and reform by crying treason.

We see similar things occurring now, although the parties in power have been reversed. Our national priorities have become completely subverted to the will of the political strategists. Blaming Sarah Palin for an assassination attempt, or blaming Democrats for political opportunism and hypocrisy (fairly or unfairly) is not constructive behavior. It just perpetuates the hyperbole, the hysterical rhetoric that has brought us to this state of affairs.

Instead, let's get to the real point why no one should be let off the hook over the power of words. Those words, if unchecked, will do violence upon our political system. The tyranny is not in the "enemies in America" who are invoked --- it is in the damage to the loss of truth.