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Go Home The Arizona Shooting Is Not A Product Of Right-Wing Rage

JONATHAN CHAIT JANUARY 10, 2011

The Arizona Shooting Is Not A Product Of Right-Wing Rage

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Conservatives are furious that the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords is being pinned on them. Their indignation is justified. The mania of Giffords's would-be assassin may be slightly more right-wing than left-wing, but, on the whole, it is largely disconnected from even loosely organized extreme right-wing politics.

The rhetorical attempts to connect Jared Loughner to mainstream politics take two forms, neither convincing. One is to condemn the use of combat metaphors in politics, such as Sarah Palin's web page superimposing gunsights upon Democratic districts targeted by the GOP. Glenn Reynolds persuasively notes that this is a well-established, bipartisan practice:

Palin critic Markos Moulitsas, on his Daily Kos blog, had even included Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's district on a list of congressional districts "bullseyed" for primary challenges. When Democrats use language like this—or even harsher language like Mr. Obama's famous remark, in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"—it's just evidence of high spirits, apparently. 

I don't believe that analogizing politics to combat encourages anybody, even the mentally ill, to take up violence. People use metaphors like this in all aspects of daily life—sports, business, dating, and on and on.

The second form is to lump together all sorts of extremism under the broad rubric of "anger" or "hate." The New York Times news story posits "a wrenching process of soul-searching about the tone of political discourse and wondered aloud if a lack of civility had somehow contributed to the bloodshed in Tucson." NBC's Mark Murray writes, "If one word summed up the past two years in American politics, it was this: anger."

This category is far too broad. Strong feelings are a part of political discourse. This is serious business. Important things are at stake, including, at times, life and death. People have a right to get angry.

Now, I do believe there is a problem with the current political moment. Both extremes of the political spectrum can embrace apocalyptic thinking and rejection of the democratic process. The left-wing version came to the fore during the 1960s, but it is tiny and almost completely disconnected from Democratic politics. The right-wing version, on the other hand, is drawing ever more tightly into an embrace with putatively respectable Republican politics. Since the closing stages of the 2008 election, conservatives have regularly described President Obama as an alien figure and his policies a fundamental threat to American liberty. It has become normal for conservatives to hint that they will take up arms if they don't get their way politically—a violation of the cultural norm of respecting democratic outcomes that forms the basis for the stability of our political system. Sharron Angle, not just a fringe activist but the GOP's candidate in a major Senate race, rhetorically flirted with outright sedition, and Republicans paid no attention to this, because they wanted to beat Harry Reid. 

This is, I think, a serious problem. But it's also a problem that has nothing, or almost nothing, to do with the tragedy in Arizona. This was not a right-wing militia member taking apocalyptic right-wing rhetoric about watering the tree of liberty too seriously. It was a random act.

I can see why those concerned about the rise of right-wing hysteria would want to use Loughner as a cautionary tale—even if he wasn't a product of right-wing rage, they may be thinking, he is an example of what right-wing rage could lead to. Yet they fail to understand that this will appear to conservatives as an attempt to use the emotion of the moment to stigmatize them. The mania of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party must be dealt with on their own terms.

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59 comments

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/01/only-generalize.html "Since the awful events in Arizona, writers in the liberal press have made a welcome discovery.... 'What is clear', it says, 'is that every Republican and media loudmouth who has flirted with insurrectionary rhetoric... should examine their consciences.'... When I say that the discovery lying behind the above quotations is a welcome one I do not mean to imply that the point they all express was previously unknown to me. It wasn't. I'd say I've been aware of it since forever. This point being? That words count. That ideology, political rhetoric, the language of violence, threats and so forth can be free-standing causes, and have real effects in their own right. But the insistence on this truth this last couple of days I call a welcome one because in another context, that of Islamist terrorism, we are regularly, and lavishly, treated in the same liberal press to efforts to displace this truth by way of literary meanderings about festering grievance, reactive rage, mistaken foreign policy, Tony Blair, and what not. For my own part I do not pretend to offer any would-be comprehensive account of the causes of Jared Loughner's actions. However, it's good to see that the relatively autonomous power of belief and its propagation can be more easily admitted in some contexts than in others to the journalistic sociology of political violence, without always being reduced to an epiphenomenon of something else. Only connect."

- noga1

January 10, 2011 at 9:27am

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meh. As long as conservatives are conscientious about not attributing the 9/11 truthers to the left or claim that there were wide swaths of liberals making death threats to W, we can talk about what's fair.

- miceelf

January 10, 2011 at 9:37am

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"It was a random act." It was not of course "random" -- a political figure was the target. We don't yet know all the facts, and it does seem that the shooter harbored some kind of personal animosity for Rep Giffords, but to immediately assume and argue that this has no relation to the political discourse of the moment (particularly in Arizona) seems myopic to me.

- brooksmhanner

January 10, 2011 at 9:41am

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Palin apparently has taken down the cross-hairs graphic from her website. If she and her advisors were convinced that any connection between Arizona and Tea Party rhetoric was manufactured by the liberal press, wouldn't she have stuck to her guns (no pun intended) and let that graphic stay, liberal press be damned.

- robertgorton

January 10, 2011 at 10:14am

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"That ideology, political rhetoric, the language of violence, threats and so forth can be free-standing causes, and have real effects in their own right. But the insistence on this truth this last couple of days I call a welcome one because in another context, that of Islamist terrorism, we are regularly, and lavishly, treated in the same liberal press to efforts to displace this truth by way of literary meanderings about festering grievance, reactive rage, mistaken foreign policy . . ." How perfectly odd. How is it the case that, if rhetoric contributes to violence, then actions, policy, people's actual experience of their existence and its objective dependence on the actions of states do not (and, as falsely attributed to the "liberal press," vice versa)? Is it not rather obvious that rhetoric and ideas matter and that objective conditions also matter, that one cannot say that either is the sole cause of political violence? Is it also not obvious that either might in a particular case by the sole cause and therefore each has the potential both to cause political violence and to contribute to political violence? Why is it that political rhetoric must be either/or with an excluded middle? Is this not indeed part of the problem that results in extremism, the inability to see that the middle ground is where most problems and most solutions lie?

- roidubouloi

January 10, 2011 at 10:17am

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Plainly, the shooter was motivated primarily by mental illness. No public speaker should be accountable for how a deranged person interprets her statements. That goes back to Charles Manson and the White Album. But I think Chait's defense misses the point. No, it's not the occasional bull's-eye, or the combat metaphors. Those are common, and not reasonably susceptible to misinterpretation But the whole argument in the last election, or lease a substantial part of it, was that "patriots" were "resisting" "tyranny" in the spirit of past American freedom fighters. They were free with quotes about the need to feed the tree of liberty, and in general said a consistent narrative of the potential necessity of violent revolution against a government that was not merely going the wrong direction, but actively ensure petition sleep trying to forcibly oppress them. THAT can reasonably be interpreted by the less stable elements of our society as a call to the necessity of violence

- gator27

January 10, 2011 at 10:29am

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Conservatives are furious that the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords is being pinned on them. Their indignation is justified. The argument Chait lays out is illogical. Let us say that the shooter had a shrine to Glen Beck and various right wing luminaries in his home, would Conservatives then be somehow guilty? Is that what Chait is saying? Democrats in a Democratic political rally were gunned down, 6 people died, including a little girl, and Republicans are making it about their feelings? That they are the victims? How about some decency and express condolences for what happened and leave it at that, and if you have some real class promise to not use incendiary rhetoric in future political campaigns (this is not an admission of guilt. Just a promise to be reasonable)

- blackton

January 10, 2011 at 10:30am

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Your conclusion goes too far: 1. We don't yet know whether the shooting was connected to the right wing militant language. If it was then your conclusion is wrong. I think it is totally possible (and probably likely) that he was influenced by this militant and apocalyptic rhetoric. 2. Even if the shooting was entirely unconnected to right wing militant rhetoric your argument that this should not be used as an example of what can happen is unconvincing. It's hard to imagine that alienating right wing militant talkers outweighs the benefit of having this moment to highlight the terrible things that can happen (which you acknowledge). 3. Your conclusion that combat metaphors are used all over the place ignores the unique context of such metaphors in a political context in which people are being told that there way of life is at stake. Not only does violence have a particular history in politics that it does not have in sports, business, etc. but the very people that are being told these things often combine a love of guns with an accopolyptic view of what government means which is a particularly dangerous combination. 4. Finally, political assassinations which can be triggered by this type of rhetoric are far more traumatic to the country than normal killings that can be provoked in a non-political context. It undermines peaceful democracy itself. I'd like to hear more from you about why you think that the harm from using this terrible moment to highlight the real danger that militant right wing rhetoric poses outweighs the potential benefit.

- BlueCivic

January 10, 2011 at 10:37am

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I don't know how to rationalize this post with the previous one (which won't allow commenting...).

- SJ_LEX_LEO@YAHOO.COM

January 10, 2011 at 10:52am

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"gator27 Plainly, the shooter was motivated primarily by mental illness." Mental illness cannot be a "motive", no more than influenza is the motive for having a bad cough. Therefore "primarily" is as out of place in such analysis as "motive" is. I blame it on the shooter's closest environment that failed to act upon perceiving that there is something very wrong in the behaviour of this individual. Where were his parents? Where were his teachers? Why is there such an indifference or reluctance in our modern societies to get involved in some way when we see the human equivalent of a runaway train wreck? Abused children continue to suffer because people avert their gaze, don't wish to get "involved". And this kind of disaster happens and everyone is trying to find a point on which to hang the responsibility. Someone should have noticed, done something.

- noga1

January 10, 2011 at 11:03am

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"The left-wing version came to the fore during the 1960s, but it is tiny and almost completely disconnected from Democratic politics." "During the 1960s" is a 10-year period that included the non-violent 1963 March on Washington; the non-violent free speech movement; the non-violent counter-cultural summer of love; non-violent mass public demonstrations and teach-ins against the hot war in Vietnam; the non-violent "war on poverty"; the non-violent involvement of young people in the Eugene Mc Carthy and Robert F. Kennedy Democratic Party primary challenges; the non-violent boycott of California grapes in support of Ceazar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; the non-violent campaign for Nuclear disarmament. Damn it!, do you remember any of this Mr. Chait? This was the democratic left-wing version of politics. Within the left-wing version of politics, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, emerged the anti-democratic left-wing, when tiny and likely foreign funded Marxist-Leninist-Maoist groups such as the Progressive Labor Party and the enraged, violent split-off from SDS, the Weatherman faction, caused great damage to a non-violent movement for peace in Vietnam and social and racial justice at home. Cultural desperadoes and drug fueled activists such as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin further damaged the movement by counterposing themselves and their cultural politics to the mass democratic aspirations of the era. The tiny, elitist, anti-democratic violent forces on the left did not dominate the various 1960s movements for peace and social change or media coverage, until the very end of the decade. The Weatherman and Progressive Labor Party, both extreme Marxist-Leninist cults, should not be counterposed to the mass based, non-violent and democratic movements for social change and peace. They did not dominate the era. The Weatherman faction and Progressive Labor represent a violent aberation, at the end of a long decade of non-violent struggle, not the fundamental tendency. The bashing of the democratic and non-violent 1960s activism with the body of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists cults is the daily pre-occupation of the conservative and neo-conservative commentariate, a major enterprise, involving business funded think-tanks and an army of well-paid ideologues and turn-coats.

- LawrenceGulotta

January 10, 2011 at 11:12am

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This act was no more random than was the vandalization of Congresswoman Gifford's office following her "aye" vote for Affordable Health Care. 3 Democrats reported damanage to their offices. Any Republicans have their offices vandalized or received death threats for voting aginst it? Let"s not try to pass this off with the lone crazed gunman theory. And the irreponsible rhetoric certainly isn't the case that "both sides do it". When Tea Partiers show up armed at political rallies, when a Republican Senate Candidate says we have "Second Amendment remedies" to free and fair elections this is not just political pep talk, combat/sports metaphor. This is an incitement to violence. The Tucson shootings were inevitable.

- dubyadoubte

January 10, 2011 at 11:22am

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JC - the specificity of right wing gun-worshipping hate speech (come on, you want to explain away Palin's crosshairs? Please!) and the fetishizing of guns designed only to kill people is such a well known recipe for bloodshed, that attempts like yours to argue otherwise come across as tortured, illogical - ludicrous even. Homeland Security came out with a report warning of just this a year ago and was ignored. I'm sorry JC, but this post feel uncomfortably close to moral relativism and pointy-headed DC-ism.

- WandreyCer

January 10, 2011 at 11:35am

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It's Glenn Reynolds, Jonathan. And blackton, it's Glenn Beck.

- liberal reformer

January 10, 2011 at 11:37am

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The only thing we know about the shooter is that he seems a confused social reject. I read that he was rejected by the army, rejected by his college and who knows by how many other people and institutions. His attack on the congresswoman was an attack on the kind of authority that rejected him. I doubt he knew that one of the people he was shooting at was a judge. This is ironic since judges would have been the perfect target for alienated malcontents like him. I don’t think he is mentally ill, but anyone who says that among his favorite writers are Marx and Hitler is dangerously incoherent, (this kind of incoherence runs deep in our culture) though not necessarily insane. He is responsible for his actions and should be put on trial for murder.

- arnon

January 10, 2011 at 11:45am

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dubyadoubte says it well. As has been written by several commentators on this board and many, many other places, inflammatory and unjustified rhetoric is extremely dangerous. If you are a low information voter, and you are hearing that the president is illegitimate and a Marxist to boot, and that the government is taking over your health care and unplugging grandma, and no-one in authority whose views you respect is challenging this (or worse, is spouting it themselves) then what are you to do? It would seem to be your responsibility as a citizen to resist this "destruction" of your government and way of life. Now it may well be that Loughner lives in an information bubble and is has never been exposed to any of this. And even if he doesn't and was, it is very difficult to attribute single actions to environmental factors unless someone leaves a trail of very clear evidence. But since we have clear and repeated equivalences of shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater for purely political purposes the idea that something like this would never occur, and if it did it is unrelated to the current poisonous environment is absurd.

- Nari224

January 10, 2011 at 11:55am

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And what blackton said. Friggin hell, there are a number of dead people in what is an attempted political assassination, and these people are "indignant"?

- Nari224

January 10, 2011 at 11:56am

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JC you are joking, right? Get out of DC and see what's going on in the rest of the country. Like this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/extremism-in-arizona-victims-political-violence_n_806657.html Other commenters have pointed out other examples. This right-wing rage is poisonous (remember Oklahoma City??) and kills eventually.

- tnmats

January 10, 2011 at 11:58am

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Yes, Loughner has mental problems -- he's likely troubled. But he's in touch with enough reality to have asserted his 5th Amendment rights. He announced his intentions -- he said he premeditated the attack. Coherent or not, his reading list was pretty political, and he was in contact with right-wing groups. He likely had some kind of obsession with Giffords -- they found that routine letter her office sent back in 2007. It's entirely possible that Palin's gunsight map and/or a talk radio rant (there was a report this morning that he liked a particular talk shock-jock) and/or something else set him off over the past few months, during the election campaign. Reports are that he bought the gun in November. He likely isn't all that deranged -- but even if he is, that doesn't begin to rule out the political influences. Or for that matter, the possibility that someone in some fringe group could have manipulated him into his shooting spree. Today's fringe left isn't -- yet -- quite as looney as the fringe right in its rhetoric -- just the accumulation of examples over the past few years shows that. That's not to say it won't get there. Or that Arizona's loons won't get loonier. It's one of those tough calls -- which do I like less: Glenn Beck, say, or, say, Daily Kos? I've got no answer. Lotsa fun ahead....

- LISAH

January 10, 2011 at 12:01pm

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While I agree that this was probably a random act, I welcome the chance to make the Republicans realize that their rhetoric has a price. Glenn Beck, Bill, O'Reilly and Fox news' efforts to make it sound like the world is coming to an end if they don't get their way has an impact on people. Their attempts to pin Obama's 'rage' on Kenyan Anti-Colonialism and to cater to birthers gives their followers the impression that Obama is a foreign and alien threat who is not elgibile to be President. How do they expect people to react to that kind of talk? When Bush was in office for 8 years against Democrats' wishes I don't recall anything like this happening. We didn't even have the equivalent of the Tea Party and yet Republicans want to put Democrats on the same page as them. Ross Douthat's blog post today attempts this but he is wrong. Neither Democrats or Republicans are perfect, but that does NOT make them equal. Republicans are clearly catering to and endorsing ideas and rhetoric they know to be false and extremist and try to step back and look confused when their followers run with those ideas. Now they are calling Obama 'corrupt' and once again, not a single Republican has come out to denounce this excessive rhetoric. Republicans may not be responsible for this particular act but they certainly encourage this type of behavior and it has nothing to do with crosshair images on websites.

- tgatz85

January 10, 2011 at 12:02pm

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I should also add, that I'm disappointed that people have to die before people really think about what their doing. I am truly sorry for the losses these families have suffered and do not intend for my post to sound like I wanted it to happen. However, I am railing against how Republicans are all busy playing defense sine this occurred.

- tgatz85

January 10, 2011 at 12:21pm

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Of course, shooting politicians is not a "random act" in the US. In Iraq maybe, but not the US. By "random act" what Chait really means is that the perpetrator is mentally ill, and that explains his violent act. Chait and Jack Shafer should jointly share the 2011 Neanderthal award. It may be news to Chait and Shafer, but mentally ill people don't go around shooting politicians and others at shopping centers. That two prominent members of the media, one a regular contributor to TNR, have such prejudices against the mentally ill is shocking.

- rayward

January 10, 2011 at 12:25pm

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I think it's funny that apparently poiticians can't be randomly shot. Other people can apparently, but not politicians. I guess we don't have enough details yet to know for sure, but whose to say that someone that carries a gun normally didn't just see a crowd of people, had been having a bad day, and just lost it?

- tgatz85

January 10, 2011 at 12:29pm

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"This Modern World" summed it up perfectly in May 2010: http://s3.credoaction.com.s3.amazonaws.com/comics/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/TMW2010-04-07colorlowres.jpg

- dubyadoubte

January 10, 2011 at 12:29pm

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Rayward, what you are saying is off base. I don't think anyone ever said that mentally ill people are the only ones that do these things, I think you just wanted to make your case despite what was actually said in the article. What Chait is saying is that there is a small group of people, mentally ill or not, that are capable of crossing the line from angry to shooting people and that blasting these people with hateful excessive rhetoric is a bad idea. Say what you will, but I think anyone can agree to that. Also, your attempt to define what he 'meant' to say is pretty weak. By 'random act' he could also have been saying that the perpetrator was mentally unstable, which I think is an acceptable analysis. But, there is the problem with trying to guess what the writer was thinking when he/she wrote something. How about just analyzing what he wrote?

- tgatz85

January 10, 2011 at 12:40pm

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The right is willing to accept violent hate rhetoric as long as it gets them votes. When it appears that it might lose them votes, as it does in the aftermath of a mass killing with a political flavor to it, then they denounce it. Retroactive condolences after a tragic event are not signs of good leadership. John McCain’s correction of the woman who called Obama an Arab during the campaign is a notable exception. What we should look for in the future is whether those who aspire to political leadership are willing to lead and constantly make clear that they renounce violence and hate in the pursuit of a more perfect union.

- Ouroboros

January 10, 2011 at 1:06pm

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rayward NAILS it to the wall. Schafer's piece wins it outright though - what glib inside-the-bubble hooey!

- WandreyCer

January 10, 2011 at 1:06pm

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tgatz, this act was - in the shooters own written words - not a random act. It was also made possible by the wackadoodle madness that passes for political rhetoric on the right. Are they mentally unstable? Does it matter? If the guy wasn't mentally ill how would that change this issue in any way? The percentage of violent mentally ill people in relation to all mentally ill people is miniscule. They are a handy dodge, cudgel, repository for shocking ignorance for people who know nothing about this population.

- WandreyCer

January 10, 2011 at 1:10pm

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Yo JC - how about you stay relevant and leave the 60's nonsense out of your arguments? How many Republican Congressmen are being threatened daily now that they are feverishly working to overturn healthcare? How many of them have been in images like Sarah Palin's crosshairs by major figures in the Democratic party? How many commentators and Democratic opponents are using personally violent imagery and gunslinging to make their case against them? How many Tea-Party like protests against these people are we seeing? With signs attacking enthnicity? Birthplace? How many Democrats show up with guns at political events? Or anywhere for that matter?

- WandreyCer

January 10, 2011 at 1:25pm

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Rayward: "It may be news to Chait and Shafer, but mentally ill people don't go around shooting politicians and others at shopping centers. " Yet this was repeatedly the preferred explanation provided by media outlets and the Internet for the killing spree of Nidal Malik Hasan or Naveed Afzal Haq: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Jewish_Federation_shooting#Motivation "While Haq's violence exploded inside a political context — the Jewish Federation, Israel's war in Lebanon — his motivations were those of a frustrated man, who, according to [his friend] Renner, didn't fit in anywhere and felt persecuted and embarrassed by his parents' Pakistani background. Haq is not a jihadi, nor a radical Islamist; his anti-Semitic rhetoric seems more like a veneer of politics on a man disturbed by feelings of inadequacy and rejection."

- noga1

January 10, 2011 at 1:25pm

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The title of this post gets it right but then things go horribly down hill: "This was not a right-wing militia member taking apocalyptic right-wing rhetoric about watering the tree of liberty too seriously. It was a random act." I don't think this is remotely defensible, particularly not as Loughner's thoughts about "American Renaissance" come trickling in. Not when Giffords' office was shot up earlier in the year. Not when she had been receiving death threats. Not when when Loughner wrote a confession announcing is intentions. How does this amount to "a random act"?

- NR851651

January 10, 2011 at 1:36pm

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Once again... I don't think anyone ever said that mentally ill people are the only ones that do these things. Also, I never said that it was a fact that this was a random act, I just figured it very likely was. My overall point was that it is possible for a politician to be randomly killed, that's all.

- tgatz85

January 10, 2011 at 1:38pm

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Also, the fact that the media is running ridiculous stories about how mentally ill people do these things doesn't mean that's what Chait thinks. My comments are related to this article, not what the media in general is saying.

- tgatz85

January 10, 2011 at 1:42pm

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There are dozens of these "both sides should take a look at what they've done" articles out today, and they're such crap. Sometimes one side is wrong and the other is right. There simply is no liberal analog to the Tea Party Rednecks' violent revolutionary fantasies--no matter how much center-ish Beltway journalists would like there to be.

- ATLeft

January 10, 2011 at 1:44pm

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@ATLeft.. I couldn't agree more.

- tgatz85

January 10, 2011 at 1:46pm

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Hate Crime? Right Wing Rage and Anger? It is impossible to determine, at this time, whether "the Arizona shooting is not a product of Right-Wing rage." It is also impossible to determine, at this time, whether the shooting was an anti-semitic hate crime. Cong. Giffords was a member of the Anti-Defamation League's Arizona Regional Board of Directors and the first American Jewish member of the US House from Arizona. So far, we have been informed that Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was one of the assassin's favorite books.

- LawrenceGulotta

January 10, 2011 at 2:02pm

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Whether this shooting is or is not the result of - in some part even - the poisonous rhetoric of the right wing, perhaps we can agree that it could have been so. Those of us who have been concerned for some time about the irresponsible and dishonest rhetoric of the right, and worried about its potential for encouraging actual violence, are not wrong to see in this event an even clearer sign of that danger. Those who call the President a tyrant, who present him in placards as Adolf Hitler, and who talk of "Second Amendment remedies" and "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants", who put Congresswomen in crosshairs and encourage their followers to "reload", who engage in wildly dishonest conspiracy theories about death panels and falsified birth certificates, who encouraged the angry mobs at town halls and who claim the President is a Muslim and not a citizen - that his legislative program and his presidency are serious attacks on our Constitution -- these people are indeed engaged in rhetoric that has the potential to ignite violence. This is obvious, and the data - in terms of the rising number of threats against our elected leaders - needs to be taken seriously. So far, the appeal to anger, and the overblown rhetoric, has served the Republicans well. The last election is a tribute to the effectiveness of appealing to the resentments and ignorance of crabby old white people. But there will be a price to pay for such tactics, and Tucson should be seen, at the very least, as a grim warning. To ignore such a warning would be even more reckless and irresponsible than the right wing rhetoric that may have led to this tragic event in Arizona. Neil

- purcellneil

January 10, 2011 at 2:23pm

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Mr. Chait, I think your are missing the forest for the trees this tragedy. Namely, rightwing "eliminationist rhetoric" is not just some abstraction, but has resulted in a real-world sharp spike in hate mail and vandalism against numerous democrats. Gifford in particular had been targeted by the teaparty, had had a gun shot through her office window, and had had a heckler with a concealed weapon removed from a prior meeting. In the context of this increased number of attacks on democrats, a single attack should not be looked at as an isolated incident, which is the mistake I believe you are making, but as part of this pattern. In some ways, it is disappointing that it takes a deaths and significant injuries to get Americans to look at the fact that it has become a dangerous world for democrats in government, where harassment is increasingly common.

- sokol8

January 10, 2011 at 2:48pm

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I can only assume that by "random act" Chait means: (1) that it was not orchestrated -- that Loughner was acting alone; and/or (2) that it was an aberration -- in no way connected to the anti-government movement that is largely embodied by factions of the Tea Party. The former -- that Loughner was not acting in concert with members of the Tea Party or some militant group, is quite probably true. The latter -- that he was acting out the perceived agenda of the Tea Party and other anti-government groups, is eminently plausible. There is already substantial circumstantial evidence of that. And I think a distinction should be made between heated or incendiary political rhetoric, on the one hand, and the deeply held belief that the government is the enemy, on the other hand. A rhetorically heated political culture waxes and wanes, and can be blamed on both major political parties. Much more ominous is that fact there is a movement afoot, no longer on the fringes, that is anti-government, and that is based on the premise that the current government (Obama in particular) is foreign and is seeking to impose a Marxist, totalitarian regime that will rob us of our freedom. That movement is being stoked by demagogues like Palin, Sharon Angle, and, indeed, Newt Gingrich. It is dangerous, and, whether or not Loughner's actions can be tied to it, it is time that we take notice. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 10, 2011 at 3:04pm

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This statement by Chait, which is the core of his argument, is wrong: "It was a random act." A random act would have been one in which the shooter went to a public place and shot whomever happened to be there. To the contrary, the evidence is that the shooter specifically targeted Giffords, that he planned to kill her. Quite the opposite of "random." And thus Chait would have us draw the conclusion, summarized in the head, that "The Arizona Shooting Is Not A Product Of Right-Wing Rage." As a purely legal, courtroom matter, the cause and effect issue is open -- not at all decided as Chait erroneously claims. But, beyond that, the shootings did not take place in a vacuum or in some other world. They took place in a political and rhetorical climate in which the killing of political opponents by assault weapons that can be purchased over the counter by unbalanced persons is openly encouraged, even advocated. Do we have to wait for even more killing to conclude that the right wing rantings are a danger to both specific, targeted victims and our political culture as well. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc. Chait is defending that which cannot be reasonably defended.

- PeteBeck

January 10, 2011 at 3:13pm

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Ouroboros I see you post at Frumforum too. Take a stab and guess which poster I am (different nickname). I have even replied to your posts.

- blackton

January 10, 2011 at 3:14pm

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Rayward, Wandrey, I often agree with you guys, but I don't see how the shooter's targeting of a political figure cancels out mental illness. This isn't to say that the mentally ill are more likely to assassinate someone. Or less likely: Look at John Hinckly. Wasn't he criminally insane? Shooting a president to prove himself to Jodi Foster does not seem like the act of a stable mind.

- MOLLYSIMON

January 10, 2011 at 4:37pm

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Molly - I'm sure mental illness plays a huge role in this, just as the report about escalating right wing rhetoric from Homeland Security warned a year ago. It doesn't excuse anyone's violent rhetoric. Sick people misunderstanding violent hate speech makes it all the more important to simply cease spewing it.

- WandreyCer

January 10, 2011 at 4:44pm

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Pinning these shootings on right wing rhetoric in general and Palen in particular may not be fair but, hey, life is not fair. Fair or not,Palen is finished as a possible contender for high office. The general public will always connect her to these shootings and she probably knows that now and knew it the moment the news broke. Play with fire... A small blessing but at a terrible price. I keep thinking of that little girl.

- paskunac

January 10, 2011 at 5:27pm

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I have never seen so many Republicans rush to the defense of the insanity defense in history. God forbid anyone hold them accountable for violent, incendiary language. The language does not make you guilty of the crime, but own up to your own language. Admit it is simply not appropriate. For the record, if it is proven that the guy has a shrine to Sarah Palin in his house it is not relevant to anyone elses guilt but his own. If he is sane, his motivations are irrelevant since there is no chance in hell his motivations could have any mitigation to his sentence. He is a murderer and a criminal. If he is insane, his motivations are also irrelevant, and he would belong in a prison for the criminally insane.

- blackton

January 10, 2011 at 6:00pm

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The article and all these comments speak volumes about the effectiveness of the NRA into brainwashing everyone into ignoring the obvious. Yes, of course the right wing rhetoric is a factor, but what possible justification is there for the idiotic laws -- in Arizona, Georgia, and elsewhere -- that would allow this deranged man to purchase a nine mm semi-automatic glock and hundreds of rounds of bullets? The rhetoric that should be challenged is not only the tea party nonsense, but any rhetoric that supports these insane laws.

- brucebrown

January 10, 2011 at 6:25pm

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Yes, Bruce, it's shocking how little is being said about gun laws. I truly believe the rhetoric out there helped have induced the man, but I think to some degree democrats (like me) are trying to tarnish to the republicans first. Plus gun control is just not that interesting. But Sara Palin motivating the man? Look how many people here have weighed in. I doubt if the title had been "We Need Stronger Gun Laws" this post would have gotten half the responses.

- MOLLYSIMON

January 10, 2011 at 6:50pm

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Chait's article is symptomatic of why the Dems always play defense and usually disappointment. If there is a shred of ambiguity, the Chaits of the workd throw up theirs hands and proclaim arguments off limits. If a tea party Member of Congress had been targetted, the entire right blogosphere would be blaming everything on the President. I say screw 'em; what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

- pgutermann

January 10, 2011 at 10:00pm

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Indeed, it's fascinating how defensive the Right is on this very sore subject. I think they know darn well they have some guilt here, they and their corporate sponsors (masters?) have inflamed the political sphere the last few years and they've been making a lot of money doing it. Does anybody seriously believe rhetoric, inflammatory speech etc had nothing to do with the Shoah? Why not simply claim that every participant in that was "mentally ill"? Wake up. Hate speech has consequences. This crime, given that a Congresswoman was the target, is political by definition and she herself seemed to be concerned about inflammatory rhetoric and also specifically the Tea Party. Whether one can draw a direct line between Sarah Palin, Beck, Limbaugh et.al. and this specific crime isn't really the issue. The issue is broader, it's that - as in WWII - a hateful, inflammatory and often racist political climate can and has led to real catastrophes. When a county sheriff says his state is a Mecca for bigotry that's serious. People should listen to Sheriff Dubnik.

- Sophia

January 10, 2011 at 10:16pm

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It is the Left that trades in hatred. Remember "Bush-Chimp-Hitler"? Remember the idea popular on the Left that Bush and Cheney were behind the attacks on 9-11? Remember the "peace" movement led by Islamofascist sympathizers like ANSWER and Code Pink? Look at the cult of hatred for Sarah Palin and the Tea Party among the *bien pensants* of academia and journalism. Sarah receives constant threats on her life and the lives of her family. The Right is rightly disturbed by Obama's ideology, a combination of pop Marxism, anti-white racism, hesperophobia and Islamophilia which is standard issue among the majority of black politicians. But there is no equivalent on the Right of the personal hatred that the Left feels toward Americans who love this country, its Constitution and its traditional values. Those of us of the pro-American, pro-liberty, pro-Western persuasion don't hate Obama and other leftist politicians. Even political conmen like Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, Al Sharpton and Al Gore we look upon with contempt rather than hatred.

- bulbman1066

January 11, 2011 at 2:50am

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Does anyone believe the hate on the right outweighs the hate on the left? If so, do you have any websites that have assembled the hate from the right that you can link to? Malkin has put together a pretty over-the-top list of hate from the left, and my god it's shocking. But I wonder if similar exists from the right.

- seattleeng

January 11, 2011 at 11:45am

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"This was not a right-wing militia member taking apocalyptic right-wing rhetoric about watering the tree of liberty too seriously. It was a random act." It appears that Mr. Chait is correct that this act was not a right-wing militia undertaking. However, his stating that the shooting of Rep. Giffords was a "random act" is as unfounded as the claim that it was caused by talk radio. This shooting was far from random. The assailant had an interest in Rep. Giffords for several years. And regardless of whether he ever explains why he shot her, and regardless of even why he may think he shot her, there is no way to determine whether he was in fact influenced by the charged rhetoric pervasive in Arizona, particularly surrounding the race for Rep. Giffords’ Congressional seat. Consider the following: 1. We know that mentally disturbed people sometimes commit mass murder in a rage 2. We know that both mentally disturbed and apparently non-mentally disturbed people sometimes assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, politicians 3. We don't know the ultimate factor that sets off any of these people 4. A politician was just shot in the head after a very heated political race in which not so subtle metaphors suggesting she should be killed were used by her opponent Given the above, and the unknowns involving the influence and effects of metaphoric calls for the murder of political opponents, the use of this rhetoric in the future would be irresponsible.

- dscot

January 11, 2011 at 11:51am

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I do not think it could ever be resolved to anyone's satisfaction whether there is more "hate speech" on the left or on the right. But "hate" isn't really the issue here. The issue is that there is a substantive ideology afoot that government is the enemy and should be minimized, and that the current administration in particular is illegitmate, even foreign, and is bent on stripping Americans of their freedoms. A corollary to that belief is that if the illegitimate government cannot be removed by democratic means, violent revolution may ultimately be the answer. No doubt only a very few adherents to that ideology seriously embrace the corollary, but there are political figures and pundits who give the view currency and "respectability." That is potentially dangerous. It is not necessarily based on "hate," but on a delusional set of beliefs. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 11, 2011 at 12:35pm

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If the shooter suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and it appears that he probably does, he's delusional: he takes the same information that everyone else takes, runs it through the distorting filter of his illness, and sees things and draws conclusions that sane people never see or conclude. This horrific incident is a case of a deranged individual guided by his demons. Chait is right.

- jrconner

January 11, 2011 at 1:15pm

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I have admired (and sometimes been annoyed at at) TNR over the years for standing back and taking a long look at events, then going against the expected tide. Often, this is a refreshing moment to pause and consider. Looking back, though, those contrary stands of what usually appear to be anodyne "two-handed moderation" are simply wrong many years later in retrospect. (Anybody remember the opposition to Clinton health care?) And Mr. Chait, who has written so many wonderfully smart things, is not totally wrong to withdraw a bit from the flares of over-bashing Palin/gun-rightists, etc, but I think he is simply mostly but not totally wrong here.

- Atlas-QT

January 11, 2011 at 1:58pm

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David Brooks' NYT endorsement of Chait's piece -- including Chait's claim that a premeditated political shooting was a "random act" (what nonsense) -- should be evidence in itself that the piece is clearly wrong. Just a thought: My guess is that the victims and their families (including the shooter's family) have a good cause of action based on tort law against Beck (happily, no relation), Palin, Fox, et al. including their local echos, and that if suits are brought they will be settled out of court. If incitement to violent crime can be shown, the defense that Loughner was mentally ill and reacting to a metaphor is no defense at all, since a forseeable consequence of incitement to violence, metaphorical or otherwise, is that a mentally ill person (and there are many) will take it seriously.

- PeteBeck

January 11, 2011 at 6:21pm

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The arguments have been made well on both sides of the issue. I agree with Chait. jrconnor makes the point very succinctly.

- basman

January 11, 2011 at 9:48pm

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Sorry, Basman, as much as I respect you, your conclusory proclamation that you agree with Chait is not of much value. :-) The fact that Loughner appears to be a "deranged individual guided by his demons" does not preclude the possibility that he was influenced by the revolutionary ideology and rhetoric of representatives of the Tea Party. The "jury" is still out and it is presumptuous to conclude either that there is or is not a causal connection. Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 12, 2011 at 10:09am

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Maybe a better way to frame the issue, rather than drawing a line of blame from Republican extremists or Sara Palin individually to this single act, which is not justifiable, is to say: "Look, all of you political extremists out there who have been trying to convey toughness and passion by using symbols and imagery of violence, look at the bloodshed, the horror, the tragedy of what you're flirting with! Look at it good and close and long. This is what it looks like when it really happens. Do you want to be responsible for that?" I think this is really what most people are thinking, but are having a hard time putting into words, since there is such a strong inclination at times like these to place blame, or explain the event. It was a random act, but it does just happens to act out what some politicians, activists and media blowhards are encouraging. So, pushing their faces in it is entirely justified, since these people have disgracefully failed to take responsibility for their expressions.

- ldeblinger

January 12, 2011 at 4:58pm

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