IT WAS NEVER GOING TO STOP WITH THE LEFT ONLY BULLYING REPUBLICANS:
—NewsBusters, May 11th, 2020.
● Chaser:
● Hangover: Words, Guns Blamed In Gabrielle Giffords Shooting.
Sarah Palin’s now-infamous crosshairs map took much of the early blame for inciting shooter Jared Loughner‘s deranged rampage, but critics are also calling out right-wing rhetoric. Writing in the Guardian, Jessica Valenti criticizes the “man up” language of recent political debates, and its adoption by female politicians (she’s one of many to mention Sharron Angle’s threat that disgruntled citizens would turn to “second amendment remedies”). Valenti writes,
In a country that sees masculinity – especially violent masculinity – as the ideal, it’s no wonder that this type of language resonates. But it’s a sad state of affairs when women in politics have to resort to using the same gendered stereotypes that kept all women out of public service for so long.
Paul Krugman, too, sees “eliminationist rhetoric” as the source of an increase in threats against American politicians — and, eventually, an impetus for unhinged people to make good on those threats.
—Jezebel.com, January 11th, 2011.
As non-Trump aide Stephen Miller writes: Kyrsten Sinema’s harassers shouldn’t get a pass from Biden. “Last week, Rolling Stone magazine published a piece calling on West Virginia senator Joe Manchin to avoid the end of all life on Earth as we know it by voting for Joe Biden’s spending package. If you subscribe to that kind of hysteria, then a few harsh words directed in a bathroom are pretty tepid. It’s why the Steve Scalise shooting was out of the news in a weekend. That’s the problem with Biden’s failure to fully condemn this behavior. This weekend, it’s invading the privacy of a female senator, while the media chuckles under their breaths. Next weekend, it’s a deranged supporter who believes a couple of senators are responsible for Ragnarok. Allowing this kind of conduct to proliferate, we have been told for four years, will lead to more escalation and violence. Biden blew it, and Sen. Sinema’s colleagues should be ashamed of themselves.”
UPDATE: We Asked a Therapist How the Hell Lawmakers Still Traumatized by The Insurrection Are Supposed to Do Their Jobs. “One of our basic human needs in order to function and in order to perform is feeling safe. It’s a very trying position where she isn’t feeling safe and she feels that there’s a risk she’ll be harmed.”
—Jezebel, January 22nd. (Via Tim Young.)
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