I was listening to an NPR segment on the increasingly violent political landscape today (which marks me as a silly liberal) and now I'm moved to write a little something about it here on Daily Kos (which not only marks me as a liberal, but proudly tattoos in on my forehead).
This diary starts with a simple premise - you reap what you sow. If you plant hatred, don't be surprised when hatred sprouts from the ground, flowers and starts to take over the garden.
Republicans have been sowing hate, not for years, but for decades. I should know, I was one.
This use of vile and violent rhetoric has been going on at least since the 1980s, increased during the Clinton years, burst into scorching attacks against anything considered "not right enough" during the Bush years and is finally bearing poisoned fruit today.
I didn't start out as anything politically - I don't have early ideas of Republican and Democrat. Granted, I grew up on a daily diet of Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, the Watergate scandal coverage, and Days of Our Lives, but I was too young to understand much of it - except Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street.
I respected President Ford because he was the president and that was someone you respected. I liked President Carter and would have voted for him if I was a few years older. But that was the 70s and I didn't come of political age until the 80s and Ronald Reagan.
I joined the fray in the 1980s, jumping into the Reagan re-election campaign. It felt heady to be, not only involved, but involved with the winning team. I found a lot to admire about President Reagan, but never quite the blind adoration of some of my friends. I joined the Young Republicans and thought that would open a vast landscape of political involvement and excitement. It didn't. Instead, the Young Republicans gave me my first taste of horror and disappointment.
Lining the walls and filling the tables at every meeting were the most violent and vitriolic posters and pamphlets I had ever seen. Sure, there where plenty of "I Heart Ronnie" buttons, but there was far more warlike propaganda. There were posters of Reagan riding bombs and missiles - Dr. Strangelove style, flyers declaring the United States should nuke the Soviet Union and be done with it, and the first references I remember of anyone being in favor of a woman's right to choose being called a baby killer.
It would be easy to write all this off as far in the past and simply the work of overzealous college kids, but that's not the case. These were not hand scrawled posters, they were professionally produced and printed. This was made to fire up excitable and impressionable youth. And, it was perhaps the start of the inflamatory hatred that is being harvested now.
I couldn't then, and still can't, stomache such shallow-minded fear and hate mongering. So, I never went back.
A few years later, I found many of these same people pushing the Oregon Ballot Measure 9, an anti-gay rights initiative. The level of hate was ratcheted up to extreme levels during the push to pass it and I found myself canvassing door-to-door against it. Supporters of the initiative, put forward by the Oregon Citizens Alliance (a conservative group that espoused "family values", used many of the same tactics recently seen by opponents of health care reform - promoting fear, outright lies, and bigotry. I was threatened and taunted, but felt good to stand side by side with people who opposed this heinous measure with honesty and facts.
My final break with the Republican Party - long in coming - came when Newt Gingrich essentially shut down the United States government in 1995. Again, it was hollow politics cloaked in patriotism and standing up to "tax and spend" liberals.
Gingrich unwisely let his true motivations slip out in public as was later recounted by Tom DeLay:
"He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One...Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child. The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same."
He, and the Republican party were rightfully seen as crybabies. Republicans continued on their path toward divisiveness and sensationalism, and I - respectfully - went my way and registered as a Democrat.
Several election cycles - and many years - later, I was out knocking doors and phone banking to dislodge entrenched Republican legislators and then finally to elect Barack Obama. The proudest day of my political life was watching the returns to see that the people had elected not just a proud liberal, but an African-American man as President of the United States.
If you're still here, let me treat you to what is known in journalistic circles as a buried lead...
The recent spate of violence and vitriol coming from Republicans and their rabid Tea Party fringe is nothing new. It's simply the germination of years of planting seeds of discord, bigotry and hate. These "flowerings" have neither any place in the garden of America nor should they be tolerated. Republicans planted these seeds and right-wing pundits have been cultivating and fertilizing them. It should be no surprise that they are now bearing poisoned fruit.
But, the implications of this poisonous crop go beyond today and tomorrow. It will continue to bear fruit for years. There's been an interesting correlation between the message the Republican Party has pushed over the years and the direction it has pushed young voters during the same time.
Republicans may believe that ratcheting up partisan rhetoric helps them, but the numbers show that it has the opposite effect in the long term when it comes to young adults who are forming their political affiliations. The polls show it and my own experience shows it.
This is a time for us to continue to clearly express our liberal beliefs and values. We must continue to do this and continue to do it in without adding fuel to the political bonfire that's been created by the conservative talking points machine and members of the Republican party leadership.
That's not to say that we should let their fanning the flames of violence go unchallenged. We must not let it go unchallenged, but we shouldn't stoop to the same level. To stoop to the same level would undermine our message.
Now is a time that requires measured reason and a continued message of hope. That's what I signed on for and I welcome this challenge. The Democratic party has been, and needs to continue to be, a beacon of hope and change for this nation. We should shine light on Republican hypocrisy and then move on to continue to move important legislation and change forward.
There's much to achieve. Let the Republicans continue to sow hate and discord while we sow the seeds of a better America. In the end, our harvest will be worthwhile and theirs will be exactly what they've been planting.