Democrats and media try to silence Republicans, arguing their rhetoric is dangerous, while disclaiming responsibility for their own incendiary rhetoric.
Some things never change. One of those things is Democrats and their commentariat applying completely different standards to Republicans and conservatives than what they apply to their own. One perennial example: trying to silence their political opponents by arguing that it’s a dangerous incitement to violence to criticize them sharply, while at the same time disclaiming any responsibility for the most incendiary rhetoric on their own side when their own supporters engage in violence and threats.
The latest moral panic is against Republicans running ads mentioning the (hugely unpopular) speaker of the House of Representatives in congressional races.
- Sarah Ferris and Jeremy White in Politico: “Less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election, Pelosi remains a fixture in Republican attack ads airing in districts from Montana to Wisconsin to Pennsylvania. . . . However, the GOP’s laser focus on Pelosi, while hardly a new phenomenon, is drawing new criticism in the wake of the violent assault on her husband early Friday morning.”
- Ashley Parker, Hannah Allam, and Marianna Sotomayor in the Washington Post: “This year, Pelosi — whom Republicans have long demonized as the face of progressive policies and who was a target of rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — emerged as the top member of Congress maligned in political ads, with Republicans spending nearly $40 million on ads that mention Pelosi in the final stretch of the campaign, according to AdImpact, which tracks television and digital ad spending. . . . For many Democrats, the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband represents the all-but-inevitable conclusion of Republicans’ increasingly violent and threatening rhetoric toward their political opponents.”
- Annie Karni, Catie Edmondson, and Carl Hulse in the New York Times: “For the better part of two decades, Republicans have targeted Ms. Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American politics, as the most sinister Democratic villain of all, making her the evil star of their advertisements and fund-raising appeals in hopes of animating their core supporters. The language and images have helped to fuel the flames of anger at Ms. Pelosi on the right.”
Even leaving aside the ridiculousness of the asserted connection given what we know about Paul Pelosi’s attacker, this is not our first rodeo. In 2008, there were prominent people in the left-wing commentariat who wanted John McCain and Sarah Palin prosecuted for incitement for campaign speeches:
Should politicians face criminal charges, or even prison time, if they criticize opponents in too reckless or inflammatory a fashion? The question came up last week as a chorus of critics assailed GOP candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin, whose criticisms of Barack Obama for his relationship with Bill Ayers were (it was claimed) stirring up crowd anger at campaign appearances and creating the risk of potential violence. “Borderline criminal incitement,” charged influential liberal blogger Joshua Micah Marshall. Other bloggers took up the theme, referring to the McCain/Palin rhetoric as “acting criminally to incite murder”; as comparable with shouting fire in a crowded theater; and as behavior that “may be unlawful” or at least “edging on criminal.” Some called for the FBI and Secret Service to investigate or arrest people who had gone to the rallies—or even to investigate the Republican candidates themselves. “It is only a matter of time before McCain/Palin’s falsely linking Obama to terrorism and un-American sympathies will erupt in violence against Obama’s people, the media or anyone opposing the McCain/Palin ticket,” asserted blogger “Scarecrow” at Firedoglake. “Inciting others to violence is a crime, a dangerous felony, and it is time for our media to stop treating this incitement as just another gradation of ‘negative campaigning.’” . . .
Professor Susan Kuo of the University of South Carolina School of Law began her post by aligning herself firmly with the Milbank-Krugman-Rich camp, charging the McCain campaign with “character assassination” and “peddling fear, hate, and outrage to an audience that appears highly susceptible to this message.” Her evidence? Well, among other things, “a couple of McCain’s surrogates have even invoked Obama’s middle name in what can only be an attempt to portray Obama as a terrorist himself.” Then Kuo—who teaches criminal law and criminal procedure, among other courses—moved on to a legal analysis. She asked whether the GOP candidates might have a “legal duty” to tone down their attacks, lest their unhinged partisans be enflamed to commit (still-hypothetical) acts of impulsive rage. And she laid out a couple of possible theories for criminal responsibility.
And yet, recall Nancy Pelosi’s own reaction when asked if inflammatory Democratic rhetoric bore any responsibility for the attempted assassination of Steve Scalise and other leading Republicans in 2017 at the congressional baseball-practice shooting: “I think that the comments made by my Republican colleagues are outrageous, beneath the dignity of the job that they hold, beneath the dignity of the respect that we would like Congress to command. How dare they say such thing? How dare they?” This earned a “you go, girl” headline from CNN’s Chris Cillizza: “Nancy Pelosi just went off on Republicans attacking Democrats over the Scalise shooting.” (Pelosi’s daughter, three years later, tweeted “Rand Paul’s neighbor was right,” referencing a different occasion on which Paul was attacked.)