Does the right have a violence problem?

[easyrider16]

From the New York Times This Morning:

The Buffalo killings are part of a pattern: Most extremist violence in the U.S. comes from the political right.

‘Numbers don’t lie’

Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by political extremists.

Of these 450 killings, right-wing extremists committed about 75 percent. Islamic extremists were responsible for about 20 percent, and left-wing extremists were responsible for 4 percent.

Nearly half of the murders were specifically tied to white supremacists:


As this data shows, the American political right has a violence problem that has no equivalent on the left. And the 10 victims in Buffalo this past weekend are now part of this toll. “Right-wing extremist violence is our biggest threat,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, has written. “The numbers don’t lie.”

The pattern extends to violence less severe than murder, like the Jan. 6 attack on Congress. It also extends to the language from some Republican politicians — including Donald Trump — and conservative media figures that treats violence as a legitimate form of political expression. A much larger number of Republican officials do not use this language but also do not denounce it or punish politicians who do use it; Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, is a leading example.

It’s important to emphasize that not all extremist violence comes from the right — and that the precise explanation for any one attack can be murky, involving a mixture of ideology, mental illness, gun access and more. In the immediate aftermath of an attack, people are sometimes too quick to claim a direct cause and effect. But it is also incorrect to pretend that right-wing violence and left-wing violence are equivalent problems.

Fears in Washington
If you talk to members of Congress and their aides these days — especially off the record — you will often hear them mention their fears of violence being committed against them.

Some Republican members of Congress have said that they were reluctant to vote for Trump’s impeachment or conviction partly because of the threats against other members who had already denounced him. House Republicans who voted for President Biden’s infrastructure bill also received threats. Democrats say their offices receive a spike in phone calls and online messages threatening violence after they are criticized on conservative social media or cable television shows.

People who oversee elections report similar problems. “One in six elec­tion offi­cials have exper­i­enced threats because of their job,” the Brennan Center, a research group, reported this year. “Ranging from death threats that name offi­cials’ young chil­dren to racist and gendered harass­ment, these attacks have forced elec­tion offi­cials across the coun­try to take steps like hiring personal secur­ity, flee­ing their homes, and putting their chil­dren into coun­sel­ing.”

There is often overlap between these violent threats and white supremacist beliefs. White supremacy tends to treat people of color as un-American or even less than fully human, views that can make violence seem justifiable. The suspect in the Buffalo massacre evidently posted an online manifesto that discussed replacement theory, a racial conspiracy theory that Tucker Carlson promotes on his Fox News show.

(This Times story examines how replacement theory has entered the Republican mainstream.)

“History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse,” Representative Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who have repeatedly and consistently denounced violence and talk of violence from the right, wrote on Twitter yesterday. “The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism,” Cheney wrote, and called on Republican leaders to “renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.”

A few other Republicans, like Senator Mitt Romney, have taken a similar stance. But many other prominent Republicans have taken a more neutral stance or even embraced talk of violence.

Some have spoken openly about violence as a legitimate political tool — and not just Trump, who has done so frequently.

At the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack, Representative Mo Brooks suggested the crowd should “start taking down names and kicking ass.” Before she was elected to Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene supported the idea of executing Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats. Representative Paul Gosar once posted an animated video altered to depict himself killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and swinging swords at Biden.

Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, once called the Federal Reserve “treasonous” and talked about treating its chairman “pretty ugly.” During Greg Gianforte’s campaign for Montana’s House seat, he went so far as to assault a reporter who asked him a question he didn’t like; Gianforte won and has since become Montana’s governor.

These Republicans have received no meaningful sanction from their party. McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, has been especially solicitous of Brooks and other members who use violent imagery.

This Republican comfort with violence is new. Republican leaders from past decades, like Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Howard Baker and the Bushes, did not evoke violence.

“In a stable democracy,” Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist, told me, “politicians unambiguously reject violence and unambiguously expel from their ranks antidemocratic forces.”

[XtremeJibber2001]

The racist terrorism in Buffalo is a direct extension of the long history of violence & propaganda used to advance white supremacy.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526281357130866688

[throbster]

Sleepy is doing really really poorly in the polls, so the media lap dogs, right on queue, are spreading the white supremacists narrative.

It's the only reason Sleepy is going to Buffalo today.

Predictable and despicable. The lowest political trick in the book. He has nothing else.

[XtremeJibber2001]

Sleepy is doing really really poorly in the polls, so the media lap dogs, right on queue, are spreading the white supremacists narrative.

It's the only reason Sleepy is going to Buffalo today.

Predictable and despicable. The lowest political trick in the book. He has nothing else.

I mean ... the dude had 'niggers' written on his modified XM-15, but what do I know.

[deadheadskier]

Sleepy is doing really really poorly in the polls, so the media lap dogs, right on queue, are spreading the white supremacists narrative.

It's the only reason Sleepy is going to Buffalo today.

Predictable and despicable. The lowest political trick in the book. He has nothing else.

Was the shooter who wrote a manifesto claiming to be a white supremacist and wanting to kill as many black people as possible really just conducting a political trick?

Do you feel the crime wasn't racially motivated? If so, why?

[easyrider16]

Sleepy is doing really really poorly in the polls, so the media lap dogs, right on queue, are spreading the white supremacists narrative.

It's the only reason Sleepy is going to Buffalo today.

Predictable and despicable. The lowest political trick in the book. He has nothing else.

I hate this refrain that I constantly hear in right-wing media, that somehow response to the events of the day are some kind of liberal conspiracy. That's bullsh!t. This story is in the news because it is a major event that just happened. This guy was very clearly a white supremacist, so that's what the news is reporting. And visiting the site of a shooting like this is what Presidents do in response to these horrible events. For example, Trump did it in Dayton.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 920474001/

[throbster]

Posting this again for the dimwitted...

https://nypost.com/2021/11/24/darrell-b ... te-people/

[deadheadskier]

More deflection.

Simple question. Was the mass murder in Buffalo racially motivated? If you feel it wasn't, why is that?

[throbster]

Of course it was racist. But pinning it on Republicans is absurd.

Here's your boy Eric, Fartman, Swawell making an ass out of himself yet again:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/eric-swal ... ms-gop-boy

[deadheadskier]

Link to Democrats promoting Replacement Theory?

[Dickc]

Calling white supremacists right-wing is like calling Islamic Terrorists left wing. Both are neither. They are just plain terrorist extremists. This "hit piece" by the New York Ties is yellow journalism at its worst. It is done to try and malign Republicans by a newspaper that is run very leftist Democrats. The Republican party needs to distance itself from ANY extremists. Does it do a good job of that? No, and it needs to wise up.

Remember, the orientalists for White supremacy were the Democrats.

Do we have an extremist problem in the US? Yes, but take the white supremacists off the right wing side and take Islamic terrorists off the Left wing side, and color them both as YELLOW as they are YELLOW (as in chicken sh*t), both of them.

What happened in Buffalo should outrage 99.99% of America (it DOES outrage and sicken me). Trying to label it as anything but extremist terrorism only makes the problem worse.

[deadheadskier]

Calling white supremacists right-wing is like calling Islamic Terrorists left wing. Both are neither. They are just plain terrorist extremists. This "hit piece" by the New York Ties is yellow journalism at its worst. It is done to try and malign Republicans by a newspaper that is run very leftist Democrats. The Republican party needs to distance itself from ANY extremists. Does it do a good job of that? No, and it needs to wise up.

Remember, the orientalists for White supremacy were the Democrats.

Do we have an extremist problem in the US? Yes, but take the white supremacists off the right wing side and take Islamic terrorists off the Left wing side, and color them both as YELLOW as they are YELLOW (as in chicken sh*t), both of them.

What happened in Buffalo should outrage 99.99% of America (it DOES outrage and sicken me). Trying to label it as anything but extremist terrorism only makes the problem worse.

Dick,

I'm sorry but Republicans DESERVE to be maligned after this mass shooting. The shooter himself said this was in response to White Replacement Theory. The third ranking member of the GOP House, Elise Stefanik has promoted the theory. She freaking doubled down on it on Monday morning after the tragedy! She's from NY even. It is straight up promoting a culture war to motivate the white base and create fear / anger in them against people of color. This type of crap leads to the radicalization of the Peyton Gendrons and Dylan Roofs in this country.

Elise Stefanik should have her assignments voided and she should step down. Mitch and McCarthy should be calling out all of these racists like Stefanik, Gosar and others. Gosar has spoken at White Nationalist events with little to no criticism from party leadership. Why???

[Dickc]

Calling white supremacists right-wing is like calling Islamic Terrorists left wing. Both are neither. They are just plain terrorist extremists. This "hit piece" by the New York Ties is yellow journalism at its worst. It is done to try and malign Republicans by a newspaper that is run very leftist Democrats. The Republican party needs to distance itself from ANY extremists. Does it do a good job of that? No, and it needs to wise up.

Remember, the orientalists for White supremacy were the Democrats.

Do we have an extremist problem in the US? Yes, but take the white supremacists off the right wing side and take Islamic terrorists off the Left wing side, and color them both as YELLOW as they are YELLOW (as in chicken sh*t), both of them.

What happened in Buffalo should outrage 99.99% of America (it DOES outrage and sicken me). Trying to label it as anything but extremist terrorism only makes the problem worse.

Dick,

I'm sorry but Republicans DESERVE to be maligned after this mass shooting. The shooter himself said this was in response to White Replacement Theory. The third ranking member of the GOP House, Elise Stefanik has promoted the theory. She freaking doubled down on it on Monday morning after the tragedy! She's from NY even. It is straight up promoting a culture war to motivate the white base and create fear / anger in them against people of color. This type of crap leads to the radicalization of the Peyton Gendrons and Dylan Roofs in this country.

Elise Stefanik should have her assignments voided and she should step down. Mitch and McCarthy should be calling out all of these racists like Stefanik, Gosar and others. Gosar has spoken at White Nationalist events with little to no criticism from party leadership. Why???

I cannot answer as to why certain Republicans are doing this. It will lead to the death of the party. I have, and will continue, to support GOP members like Liz Chaney or Mitt Romney who are upstanding Republicans. I cannot support the stuff the Democrats are tossing out, such as forgiving student debt, "Human infrastructure" bills and the like. Its like trying to decide between the frying pan or the fire. That being said, the new "journalist" the NY Times has doing this morning newsletter is a real partisan hack in her own right. I get this news letter in the morning, and it USED to be decent reading.

[easyrider16]

Calling white supremacists right-wing is like calling Islamic Terrorists left wing. Both are neither. They are just plain terrorist extremists.

I would agree with this before the Trump GOP era. Now you've got a lot of very popular Republicans who seem to tacitly support this sort of thing. Trump himself on occasion was hesitant to condemn white supremacists. Remember proud boys, stand back and stand by? And then of course Trump's failure for hours to do anything about the riot at capitol hill. What sort of message do these things send to the extremists? Seems to me like it says, "green light"

[deadheadskier]

Calling white supremacists right-wing is like calling Islamic Terrorists left wing. Both are neither. They are just plain terrorist extremists. This "hit piece" by the New York Ties is yellow journalism at its worst. It is done to try and malign Republicans by a newspaper that is run very leftist Democrats. The Republican party needs to distance itself from ANY extremists. Does it do a good job of that? No, and it needs to wise up.

Remember, the orientalists for White supremacy were the Democrats.

Do we have an extremist problem in the US? Yes, but take the white supremacists off the right wing side and take Islamic terrorists off the Left wing side, and color them both as YELLOW as they are YELLOW (as in chicken sh*t), both of them.

What happened in Buffalo should outrage 99.99% of America (it DOES outrage and sicken me). Trying to label it as anything but extremist terrorism only makes the problem worse.

Dick,

I'm sorry but Republicans DESERVE to be maligned after this mass shooting. The shooter himself said this was in response to White Replacement Theory. The third ranking member of the GOP House, Elise Stefanik has promoted the theory. She freaking doubled down on it on Monday morning after the tragedy! She's from NY even. It is straight up promoting a culture war to motivate the white base and create fear / anger in them against people of color. This type of crap leads to the radicalization of the Peyton Gendrons and Dylan Roofs in this country.

Elise Stefanik should have her assignments voided and she should step down. Mitch and McCarthy should be calling out all of these racists like Stefanik, Gosar and others. Gosar has spoken at White Nationalist events with little to no criticism from party leadership. Why???

I cannot answer as to why certain Republicans are doing this. It will lead to the death of the party. I have, and will continue, to support GOP members like Liz Chaney or Mitt Romney who are upstanding Republicans. I cannot support the stuff the Democrats are tossing out, such as forgiving student debt, "Human infrastructure" bills and the like. Its like trying to decide between the frying pan or the fire. That being said, the new "journalist" the NY Times has doing this morning newsletter is a real partisan hack in her own right. I get this news letter in the morning, and it USED to be decent reading.

Understood and that's kinda the point of the Can the Republican Party be saved thread. The radicals in the party are now the mainstream.

More Cheney's and Romney's or Charlie Baker's are what the party needs. They're all labeled RINOs now.