Fallows on Political Assassinations

Here is a roll call of craziness in US politics by James Fallows in The Atlantic:

Shootings of political figures are by definition "political." That's how the target came to public notice; it is why we say "assassination" rather than plain murder.

But it is striking how rarely the "politics" of an assassination (or attempt) match up cleanly with the main issues for which a public figure has stood. Some killings reflect "pure" politics: John Wilkes Booth shooting Abraham Lincoln, the German officers who tried to kill Hitler and derail his war plans. We don't know exactly why James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King, but it must have had a lot to do with civil rights.

There is a longer list of odder or murkier motives:
- Leo Ryan, the first (and, we hope, still the only) Representative to be killed in the line of duty, was gunned down in Guyana in 1978 for an investigation of the Jim Jones/Jonestown cult, not any "normal" political issue.

- Sirhan Sirhan horribly transformed American politics by killing Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, but Sirhan's political causes had little or nothing to do with what RFK stood for to most Americans.

- So too with Arthur Bremer, who tried to kill George C. Wallace in 1972 and left him paralyzed.

- The only known reason for John Hinckley's shooting of Ronald Reagan involves Jodie Foster.

- It's not often remembered now, but Manson family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme tried to shoot Gerald Ford, again for reasons that would mean nothing to most Americans of that time.

- When Harry Truman was shot at (and a policeman was killed) on the sidewalk outside the White Blair House, the attackers were concerned not about Cold War policies or Truman's strategy in Korea but about Puerto Rican independence.

- The assassinations of William McKinley and James Garfield were also "political" but not in a way that matched the main politics of that time. The list could go on.

So the train of logic is:

1) anything that can be called an "assassination" is inherently political;

2) very often the "politics" are obscure, personal, or reflecting mental disorders rather than "normal" political disagreements. But now a further step,

3) the political tone of an era can have some bearing on violent events. The Jonestown/Ryan and Fromme/Ford shootings had no detectable source in deeper political disagreements of that era. But the anti-JFK hate-rhetoric in Dallas before his visit was so intense that for decades people debated whether the city was somehow "responsible" for the killing. (Even given that Lee Harvey Oswald was an outlier in all ways.)

I found it interesting that within 24 hours of the shooting partisans like Dick Armey (ex Republican house leader) were on TV putting a spin on things making it clear that he wanted the war of words to continue. He officially called for a "cooling of rhetoric" but he remained combative and the clear message was that he and his ilk would keep up the bullying political speech. He was in it to "win" no matter what. The Sarah Palin's of the world may take down the target shooting posters but they won't give up the implicit violence of their speech. They will "tone down" their images from shooting to something closer to a need for a final solution which marginalizes the voices of opposition... and I chose the words "final solution" carefully.

Here's an example of the poisonous political bullying that has been going on. This is from a Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone magazine:

Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus "may be a dead man" and "can't go home to the west side of Cincinnati" because "the Catholics will run him out of town," Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house. Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him.

"I didn't think it was funny at all," Driehaus says. "I've got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, 'John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.'"

Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn't think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. "But it's not about what he intended — it's about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work."

Driehaus says Boehner was "taken aback" when confronted on the floor, but never actually said he was sorry: "He said something along the lines of, 'You know that's not what I meant.' But he didn't apologize."

Starting with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the US underwent 20 years of political assassinations as fanatics decided for bullets over ballots. It seems to me that the US is descending into another decades long period of fratricidal "politics". The right has become too powerful and has sold out the broad interests of the public to corporate interests and the rocketing increase of wealth among the top 0.1% of the population, the "ultra-rich", who now buy and sell politicians like the kids I knew as a youngster who traded baseball cards. I don't have a crystal ball, and I'm probably terribly wrong, but it sure seems to me that the US is in for 20 years of turbulence as the left pushes hard like the right did from 1963 to 1981 as an era of political assassinations blossomed in the sour politics of the time.

For those who are conspiracy theorists, here's a spooky fact to chew on. This is from Brad DeLong's blog:

Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva are both Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Arizona. On Tuesday January 4 the number of hits on the "Gabrielle Giffords" page on Wikipedia began to rise. The number of hits on the "Raul Grijalva" page did not. By Friday January 7 more than three times as many people were looking at Gabrielle Giffords's Wikipedia page than had done so in a normal day in the previous month and a half.

On Saturday January 8, of course, six people were murdered in the course of the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords.

Please give me an explanation of this so that I can stop being a nutbar conspiracy theorist...

I sure hope I'm wrong and political speech cools down and debate remains vigorous but civil. But, sadly, I don't see how we get there from here given the current right wing radicalization of the public. What I foresee is a long struggle to get politics out of the hands of the right wing ideologues and back to something sensible where left, centre, and right can sit down an argue vigorously but respectfully with all the subtext of violence removed. But that will require a very big climb-down by the right and I just don't see that. That change comes over time as people turn away from violence and the fanatics who sell this kind of poison. Think how long it took for the US to cool down from the "bring the Revolution home" rhetoric of the SDS and other left wing fanatics of the 1960s.