The Congressional Shooter: The Right's Ridiculous Response

I shouldn't have been surprised but I must confess I was taken aback by the recent comments and diatribes by Right-wing figures over the GOP baseball shooting in Alexandria VA. A Bernie Sanders supporter decided to go after congressional Republicans and he himself went down in a hail of gunfire after shooting several people including House Whip Steve Scalise.

The Right responded by lambasting the Democrats over the level of anti-Trump rhetoric which now inhabits the airwaves. They called out the supposedly Left-wing media for fanning the flames and excoriated Democratic leaders for not reigning in the vitriol flowing from their supporters.

Frankly this response by the GOP and its apologists is laughable even to the point of being absurd. This is especially true when it comes to the hosts of talk radio. Their calls to 'tone down the rhetoric' and for leaders to 'take responsibility' are outrageous. These are the very people that have helped to 'fan the flames' of the Right-wing violence which has been the dominant form of terrorism in this country over the past eight years.

The way they spoke about Obama, discredited and delegitimised him fueled a great deal of violence and terrorism. I am amazed there weren't more 'close-call' attempts to assassinate him. Their rhetoric has helped foster the resurgent militia movement and has led to massive groundswell in extreme right groups.

The 'liberal' media has largely ignored or at the very least downplayed the Right-wing violence that has dominated the country over the past decade. It surpasses anything Islamic, most of which is homegrown lone imitators and emulators and in many cases dupes set up by FBI provocateurs. Yes, this is the same FBI headed by such honourable stalwarts such as Mueller and Comey.

All that said, there is a valid concern regarding political violence. But people are delusional if they think this is going to go away or calm down. I look for it to get much worse. All sides are to blame. The Democrats continue their Left-wing charade which does little more than divide the lower working classes. Their message brings no unity but instead seeks to channel political rage against GOP excesses into their party. And yet they are ultimately on the same team. Apart from wanting to throw some crumbs to the poor and to fawn over freaks and perverts, the Democrats in the end are part of the same Wall Street-Pentagon apparatus the Republicans so openly champion.

And as detestable as the Democrats are, the Republicans have turned to policies that blatantly seek to crush the poor in the name of Wall Street and the militarism that it both feeds and drives. The Republicans and their sick sycophantic commentator corps have much to answer for and we've only just begun to feel the effects of what twenty-five years of Rush Limbaugh et al. are going to produce. Bad foundations have been laid and the buildings that have grown from these rotten seeds are horrid and will ultimately fragment and destroy this society.

The saddest part about the now dead shooter is that he thought Bernie Sanders stood for something. Sanders is a fraud, a phoney. Right now rather than go after the GOP and Trump's destructive anti-social policies the Democrats have turned into Neo-McCarthyites and have initiated a new anti-Russian witch hunt. I know Trump used that term. What can I say? I broken clock is right twice a day.  But he's right. That's what it is. And it's as bogus and misguided as Tailgunner Joe's buffoonish campaign in the 1950s.

Trump of course is foolish and corrupt and his obstructionism is like a rope he's hanging himself with. Though his political enemies have furnished no proof of a Russian plot, his arrogance alone will provide the Democrats with the fodder needed to burn him alive.

What a time we live in.