Now this one could be big. Real Halloween stuff.
Last night on the Sean Hannity Show, Michele Bachmann asked Americans to join her on a march into the United States Capitol to protest the proposed health care reform bill. That's right, and open invitation to a national audience to show up on the Capitol steps, on Thursday at "high noon," Washington D.C. time. Michele hopes that a mob will invade the halls of Congress and make their opposition known to her elected colleagues.
(Keep reading after the jump and watch the video, this is good stuff, classic crazy extremist Bachmann...continued)
This would be a big score for Michele personally, if a large number of the tea baggers and the town hall meeting screechers take her up on this invitation. Very good video, from Michele's point of view--because she's nuts and thrives on proto-fascism.
Now there are some issues here. First of all--we (you, me, Michele) live in a representative democracy. There are instances in which Americans opposed to a government policy show up at the capitol to protest that policy. But here we have an elected official going on television to organize a mob of her own in order to influence the course of legislation by intimidating her colleagues.
In the proto-fascist universe of this elected official, it's okay to do that--to organize a mob to intimidate your colleagues in office into doing your will.
Listen carefully, it's classic Bachmann apocalyptic demagoguery. Bachmann tells the television audience across America that if the proposed health care bill goes through, "you can't with a straight face say that we're a capitalist, free market country anymore." She tells the same audience that a bill that hasn't even been enacted yet is "unconstitutional." She says that the proposed bill would force Americans "to purchase a product or service against their will."
This bill is "our liberty (or) tyranny" moment"--Bachmann is telling Hannity's audience that it's either/or; if this bill passes we're a tyranny:
"This is it! This is about patriotism, and manning up. If we can get Americans, literally, by the busload, to come to Washington, D.C. next week, look their member of Congress in the eye, pay a house call on Congress and say: "Don't you dare take away (sic) my health care, cradle to grave (sic)--we'll stop this."
It's not about patriotism. It's about proto-fascism, as it always is--for Michele Bachmann and her most rabid fans. Patriotism is about respect for the Constitution and elected government and the lawmaking process--this appeal to raise a mob to stop legislation she doesn't like is the opposite of patriotism.
And guess what? This is not the first time she's attempted to do this. She's tried to raise a mob to intimidate her elected colleagues before--here in Minnesota, back in 2006. She went on the airwaves here in Minnesota and encouraged citizens supporting her anti-gay marriage amendment to enter the offices of her colleagues in the state capitol in St. Paul. She offered to give her listeners maps to locate the offices of Dem colleagues, to get in their faces!
"It’s the Democrat Senators that we need to melt their phone lines. Even more important, if anyone can come to the rally on Monday, they need to come, and we will give them maps with the offices of where the Democrat Senators are..."
... "We only have until May 17 (2004) at the latest. But really, it is this next week that the DFL is going to try to kill this bill. It’s within the Christian community’s hands to get face to face, in front of these Democrats." — Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program "Prophetic Views Behind The News", hosted by Jan Markell, KKMS 980-AM, March 20, 2004.
Well--on that occasion, no mob stormed the capitol to stop gay marriage. But this time, after the summer of shouting down Congressman at town hall meetings and teabaggers marching on Washington at the behest of Glenn Beck--she just might get her mob.
This is not how a democracy's supposed to work. Elected officials are supposed to persuade the electorate to win elections. If they lose at election time, they're supposed to argue their minority view passionately with other elected officials, and negotiate, compromise, even use procedural rules to block legislation that they don't like.
But one thing that an elected representative of the American people is not supposed to do is to encourage millions of angry people to face off in person with the elected government in the halls of Congress. That's dangerous and irresponsible, and it shows a deep contempt for the best institutions and traditions of elected government and constitutional lawmaking.
But this is apparently one of Bachmann's longstanding dreams--to be an elected official trying to intimidate other elected officials, at the head of an angry mob.
We already know that she can count on the support of conservative "heroes" like Hannity. We will see if she's successful in organizing her mob, this time around. But the people who show up for such a demonstration are not "the" American people. They are not a majority, or anything like. They do not trust or believe in the institution of constitutional elected government. Bachmann is attempting to make law and bully the other members of Congress via an angry mob, and that's contemptible.
And dangerous.