The headline is taken directly from an 11/12/21 New York Times article by Lisa Lerer and Astead W. Herndon :
Threats of violence have become commonplace among a significant part of the party, as historians and those who study democracy warn of a dark shift in American politics.
The link above should allow access through the paywall. READ THE WHOLE THING.
At a conservative rally in western Idaho last month, a young man stepped up to a microphone to ask when he could start killing Democrats.
“When do we get to use the guns?” he said as the audience applauded. “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” The local state representative, a Republican, later called it a “fair” question.
In Ohio, the leading candidate in the Republican primary for Senate blasted out a video urging Republicans to resist the “tyranny” of a federal government that pushed them to wear masks and take F.D.A.-authorized vaccines.
“When the Gestapo show up at your front door,” the candidate, Josh Mandel, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, said in the videoin September, “you know what to do.”
And in Congress, violent threats against lawmakers are on track to double this year. Republicans who break party ranks and defy former President Donald J. Trump have come to expect insults, invective and death threats — often stoked by their own colleagues and conservative activists, who have denounced them as traitors.
Here’s the key point:
From congressional offices to community meeting rooms, threats of violence are becoming commonplace among a significant segment of the Republican Party. Ten months after rioters attacked the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, and after four years of a president who often spoke in violent terms about his adversaries, right-wing Republicans are talking more openly and frequently about the use of force as justifiable in opposition to those who dislodged him from power
emphasis added
There has to be the mandatory both-sides disclaimer of course:
...And elements of the left have contributed to the confrontational tenor of the country’s current politics, though Democratic leaders routinely condemn violence and violent imagery.
emphasis added
Here’s the kicker:
But historians and those who study democracy say what has changed has been the embrace of violent speech by a sizable portion of one party, including some of its loudest voices inside government and most influential voices outside.
emphasis added
The one party is of course the Republican Party. It did not start with Trump, but he openly embraced violence.
From his earliest campaigning to the final moments of his presidency, Mr. Trump’s political image has incorporated the possibility of violence. He encouraged attendees at his rallies to “knock the hell” out of protesters, praised a lawmaker who body-slammed a reporter, and in a recent interview defended rioters who clamored to “hang Mike Pence.”
Yet even with the former president largely out of the public eye and after a deadly attack on the Capitol where rioters tried to overturn the presidential election, the Republican acceptance of violence has only spread. Polling indicates that 30 percent of Republicans, and 40 percent of people who “most trust” far-right news sources, believe that “true patriots” may have to resort to violence to “save” the country — a statement that gets far less support among Democrats and independents.
emphasis added
How did we get here?
If there is one thing missing from this article, it’s any discussion of how Fox News has been one of the driving forces of this change. (Or how Fox is facing pressure from even more extreme right wing ‘news’ outlets.) Kevin Drum writing at Mother Jones did a deep dive to see what has been driving the country apart. His conclusion after looking at a number of possible explanations: Fox News has to be given attention as a main driver of division.
The Real Source of America’s Rising Rage makes the case. Drum looks at a number of alternative explanations, weighs them, and explains why they are not a sufficient explanation for what is happening now. Here’s some of his conclusions. (Read the whole thing for the full discussion.)
...To an extent that many people still don’t recognize, Fox News is a grinding, daily cesspool of white grievance, mistrust of deep-state government, and a belief that liberals are literally trying to destroy the country out of sheer malice. Facebook and other social media outlets might have made this worse over the past few years—partly by acting as a sort of early warning system for new outrages bubbling up from the grassroots that Fox anchors can draw from—but Fox News remains the wellspring.
...The Fox pipeline is pretty simple. Fox News stokes a constant sense of outrage among its base of viewers, largely by highlighting narratives of white resentment and threats to Christianity. This in turn forces Republican politicians to follow suit. It’s a positive feedback loop that has no obvious braking system, and it’s already radicalized the conservative base so much that most Republicans literally believe that elections are being stolen and democracy is all but dead if they don’t take extreme action.
...For the past 20 years the fight between liberals and conservatives has been razor close, with neither side making more than minor and temporary progress in what’s been essentially trench warfare. We can only break free of this by staying clear-eyed about what really sustains this war. It is Fox News that has torched the American political system over the past two decades, and it is Fox News that we have to continue to fight.
emphasis added
Is Fox News the entire story? No — but it is pouring gasoline on the fires it started on a daily basis. There have been any number of stories here at Daily Kos on people losing friends and family members to the Fox News world view. People are dying from Covid because of Fox News disinformation. The symbiotic relationship between Fox News and the GOP has become seamless. The mainstream media routinely picks up on Fox News messaging.
To return to the New York Times article, they see the results, but they don’t make the connection. Look at the bolded text in the block quote immediately above, then read the following below:
Such views, routinely expressed in warlike or revolutionary terms, are often intertwined with white racial resentments and evangelical Christian religious fervor — two potent sources of fuel for the G.O.P. during the Trump era — as the most animated Republican voters increasingly see themselves as participants in a struggle, if not a kind of holy war, to preserve their idea of American culture and their place in society.
emphasis added
Fox News is leading the Jihad; at this point it’s pointless to ask which is the tail and which is the dog, and who is wagging who.
Bottom Line:
We are approaching a civil war that threatens to turn hot. We know who the actors are. Even the Mainstream Media is starting to take note — although they relegated this story to the late Friday News Dump, where stories are thrown out in hopes they’ll fade away over the weekend. This article ought to spark follow up stories around the mediaverse. Want to make bets on how far it gets?
The GOP doesn’t just regard violence as one political tool among many. They are preparing to make it a primary tool. To quote Isaac Asimov via his creation Salvor Hardin: “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Republicans have nothing to offer, have no ideas that work, can’t legitimately win elections on their merits — it’s no surprise violence is becoming their go-to option.
What are we going to do about it?