GOP Leaders Match Up Message to Violent Talk

[sufrommich]

Words matter -- and they matter even more when they are violent words. Apparently, GOP leadership agrees.

Despite the unwillingness of mainstream media to connect the dots, the base and leadership of the GOP are matching their rhetoric to the disturbing rise of violent talk at Tea Party rallies and amongst conservative anti-government groups. The conclusion: rather than recoil at violent language, GOP leadership seems to see it as a chance to turn out votes.

Most notably, Chairman of the RNC Michael Steele issued a recent call to Republicans to put Nancy Pelosi on the "firing line" because of the health insurance reform bill.

By using the phrase "firing line," Steele encourages Republican activists to think of the next election as an execution of the opposition or a violent killing. The language Steele uses is not neutral. "Defeat" is defined as "kill." "Voting" is linked to "shooting." Winning the election is couched in an image of bloodletting.

In a similar violent vein, Sarah Palin via Twitter told her Republican followers to "reload" and "aim for" Democrats, directing GOP activists to her SarahPac website where they found a map of the country festooned with rifle scope cross-hairs over Congressional districts held by Democrats.

Palin's rifle scope map is the kind of image one might expect to see in an ad for a violent, first-person shooter video game. Again, neither the language nor the imagery Palin uses are neutral. For Palin, the concepts of political "organizing" and "volunteering" are recast as the functions of a rifle. "Campaigning" is re-imagined as a counter assault on a war battlefield. Even more disturbing, Palin re-imagines the traditional U.S. map as a military kill list. Engaging in election politics is framed as violent assault.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/gop-leaders-match-up-mess_b_511939.html

[KharmaTrain]

1. They Fear Irrelevance...

The GOOP has no power...completely shut out of the government and it's their own fault, yet in their parallel universe it's the opposite. Thanks to Faux and hate radio, their echo chamber is blasting loudly and is echoed by the corporate media who sees "partisanship" as good business.

Think of these shitstains as shock jocks. To keep people paying attention they have to keep pushing the envelope...the next poutrage tops the last, the language gets more heated and the rhetoric more verbose. This is excelerated by the rapid decline in the party and lack of any real policies or ideals. It's weak...a caged tiger doing all it can to stay in the game before it starts eating its own limbs.

The rock and hard place is if stops its fringe...tries to muzzle Rushbo and calm things down, they lose their ability to get attention. Thus the race to the bottom will continue. Sadly I expect there'll be violence as this party disconnects further from reality. To what end? Reunite Democrats who may have our own differences with this Administration but see the GOOP once again as the biggest threat of all.

The problem with throwing tantrums is eventually you run out of energy...and then you look like a fool.