In the 2nd amendment solutions thread I brought up eliminationist politics, and how I believe it’s different from mere violently tinged rhetoric or hate speech. It seems appropriate to pursue that thought in this thread, because it goes to the distinction between what some pundits have been doing and other types of speech or entertainment that contain violent imagery.
The idea of eliminationism is to clearly identify for your audience the objects deserving their fear and loathing, define them as enemies of a distinct, different and separate class and agitate for their removal or neutralization. Commentators of all political stripes engage in this, but to be effective it must be done consistently and over a long period of time by popular figures. It must have some basis of popular belief within the intended audience to build on -racial, ethnic or political stereotypes or historical grievances.
The ultimate goal of eliminationism seems as if it would be elimination of the scapegoated group, but it’s really the ascension to power of the eliminationists’ group. That doesn’t mean the scapegoating is done as a cynical device. Any individual eliminationist can be (and probably is) a believer in what they’re saying. But because the primary goal is the acquisition of power, all points of doctrine among the eliminationists must be graven principles or else their overall position becomes weakened, and this includes the propaganda regarding the scapegoats. This tends to immunize such propaganda against evidence based reasoning.
Now, Palin and her fellows have no hope in hell of ever snowballing their message into a major populist movement within the US. They’re dealing with too tiny a minority of people, in a country too large, centrist and disparately ethnic to ever achieve the type of fundamental societal shift they’re looking for. But though it’s small, their minority of followers is a considerable pool of individuals that have very strong conceptual frameworks regarding liberals, socialism in America, unions, all the boogeymen so clearly outlined by Fox News et al and assigned to the umbrella term “Democrat.”
That fearful audience not only has decades of cartoonish portrayals of liberalism that it truly believes, it’s being reminded daily that Democrats don’t love their country, want to establish a socialist government with control over grandma’s life or death, and must be removed before you lose your country to them. And oh by the way don’t forget your 2nd amendment rights and keep your guns in good repair.
On another thread, someone posted a link to a guy from the left who was moved to threaten a Republican congressperson over her anti HCR vote. I have no reason to doubt that dumbasses from any political stripe can be inspired by dark rhetoric, and I hope all parties become vigilant regarding it and self-police to discourage its use. They need to start that right now, and they need to call out their members publicly when they use such rhetoric, whether its use is disproportionate between parties or not.
This really isn’t complicated stuff. There’s a large ocean of possibilities between blithe acceptance of rabble rousing speech designed to separate Americans along ideological lines, and the criminalization of passionate forms of expression. Is it really so hard to stop being defensive on a partisan level long enough to cut some of the bullshit out of politics?