Democracy, Public Servants, and the Price of Violent Rhetoric

The moment I heard of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' attempted assassination, I was in total shock.  Here was a highly intelligent, attractive, moderate democrat who had been literally SHOT IN THE HEAD LIKE A DOG.

This resonated with me for many reasons.  First, I was formerly a political staffer for a controversial politician.  As her Legislative Assistant, I dealt with threatening and angry attacks on a daily basis.  I was the person who answered when you called her office, I was the person who had the first crack at the abusive emails.  I didn't agree with every policy position that the Senator took, but I supported her and researched for her and responded to emails for her because that was my job.

Gabe Zimmerman, Rep. Giffords' Director of Community Outreach, was just a political staffer doing his job.  He died in the attack, in spite of the fact that he made no political decisions.  His job was just to ensure that Rep. Giffords was as available to her community as possible.  And for that, he died.

Director of Community Outreach for
 Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Mr. Gabe Zimmerman.

Public servants work very hard for minimal pay.  If you don't believe that, then look at all the people who have defected from public life in order to take lucrative consulting jobs.  Trust me, it pays A LOT more.  And for every former staffer who does this, there are dozens more who stay on the job.  Not because they're "rolling in the dough," but because they feel a need to directly impact and improve the lives of those around them.  These are the "EVIL" public servants that so many deride in our political discourse.  How many of you spend your mornings sifting through the abusive emails/voicemails from the public you're trying to help?  These are the people whose "abuses" you want to cut.  Gabe Zimmerman could have left his post and made more money somewhere else, but he stayed where he was.  Why?  I could only guess.  But my guess is, he wanted to help people.  He wanted to ensure they had access to their Congresswoman, and even if he didn't believe in every stance that Rep. Giffords took, he believed in her ability to improve the country.  And for that, he not only accepted less pay and more abuse, but ultimately, he gave his life.

In the moments following my realization of the assassination attempt, I lashed out at a lot of Tea Party darlings, as well as the Tea Party itself.  This anger stemmed from one very specific truth:  Tea Party leaders, as well as many Tea Party followers, have been injecting angry, violent vitriolic rhetoric toward Government Officials into the public discourse.  As both a former political staffer and a current Terrorism researcher, I have been sounding a trumpet for a LONG time about how the violent rhetoric would lead to increased violence toward public officials.  In most cases, I like being right, it's satisfying.  But there was no satisfaction in this.  There was only the sense of frustration, the overwhelming burden of knowing what was going to happen but being powerless to stop it.

"I have concerns about some of the language that is being used
because i saw this myself in the late 70s in San Francisco, this kind
 of rhetoric. … It created a climate in which violence took place. …
I wish we would all curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements
and understand that some of the ears that it is falling on are not as
balanced as the person making the statements may assume."

I'm not the only "Cassandra" out there in regard to the complacency of  Right-Wing public officials when it came to violent rhetoric.  Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with myriad Democratic public officials and pundits, made many public and private pleas for restraint.  However, only Republican Rep. Eric Cantor went out on a limb to ask for to tone down the rhetoric.  There were too few Republicans asking that the rhetoric be more civil; Democrats were only discounted by those whose anger toward the government had reached a boiling point.  The people who mattered, like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, only intensified the anger and incited more by their talk of concentration camps and "Don't retreat, reload!"

Do I think people like Palin, Beck, Sharon Angle (Second Amendment Remedies) and most of the leaders of the Tea Party movement genuinely wanted violence against the Government?  No.  Do I think that their angry rhetoric, their talk of violent overthrows of Government, their constant ratcheting up of vitriolic speech led to this?  Certainly.

"I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress
keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those
Second Amendment  remedies and saying 'My goodness what can we do
to turn this country around?'  I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is
take Harry Reid out." 

Ultimately, all this talk of the shooter's ideology are irrelevant.  What is relevant to this senseless act of violence is the increasing legitimization of violent attacks on Government officials as a necessary act to preserve our country.  It is legitimized not by the crazy musings of fringe elements, but by the complacency and even, in some cases, the replication of this anger by mainstream officials.

If this incident had happened in the 1960s-1970s, the left would certainly have more of a hand in the violence, thanks to violent political movements like The Black Panthers and The Weather Underground.  But it's happening now.  And while the actions and ideology of extreme left groups like the Earth Liberation Front are derided by left-wing politicians and commentators, the extreme aspects of right-wing groups are being legitimized or ignored by the right.  I can name dozens of public officials in the Republican Party who have expressly justified or used violent anti-government language, but none in the Democratic Party.  Good luck finding any.

I hope that this event finally brings the Cassandra's of the country to rest.  I hope that people like Sarah Palin finally realize that this is not a game: Violent rhetoric leads to violent consequences.  I know they won't accept their responsibility personally, but I hope that the country makes them realize that WE THE PEOPLE are for DEMOCRACY, WE THE PEOPLE renounce violence, WE THE PEOPLE want our trees watered with WATER not BLOOD, WE THE PEOPLE want our political fights civil and our battles carried out with WORDS not BULLETS.

There's no place in our democracy for violence, not so long as we have free and fair elections and a functioning, while sometimes frustratingly slow, legislature.  And there never will be.