Jess Kelly, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Republican opponent in the 2010 election, liked to tout his experience as a Marine combat veteran, and often used images of himself handling guns in campaign literature and on his website. Those images are no longer available on his campaign website because Kelly scrubbed most of the site right after the Giffords shooting.
But thanks to the magic of the interwebs, most of those images have been preserved. Have a look, remember these when you hear some nice, reasonable Republican pundit on radio or TV claiming that it was rhetoric "on both sides" that led to Congresswoman Giffords' shooting.
Last time I checked, only one side asked their supporters to metaphorically "remove" their opponent from office with the help of a fully automatic M16
Fascist thinking permeates public debate and an entire political party and it is increasingly framed somehow as normal.
ReplyDeleteBut that's what fascists do. They normalize the previously unthinkable and just give it another name.
Torture? Nah, not us, we just waterboard bad guys.
Not that long ago, militant imagery in campaign materials would have been a real no-no.
What's next...let's see...I can imagine a new right wing linguistic conversion...
Win in November becomes Kill the bastards.
Ignorance rules. Bigotry wraps itself in the flag and underneath is a 30 shot Glock 9.
Any questions?