I’m not sure I’d go as far as to say they’re political terrorists. But a few things are clear:
- The GOP and like minded conservatives are doing their level best to distort reform proposals into some kind of socialist Armageddon.
- Assorted nut jobs, tea baggers and birthers have seized upon this to vent all manner venom on the President.
- Much of the attacks carry a nasty racial undertone.
It certainly bears more than a superficial resemblance to Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” to exploit the racial anxieties of fearful white voters. A quick review of footage from recent congressional town hall meetings and some of the signs and imagery used by reform opponents are nothing less than disturbing. Nevertheless trying to label them as political terrorists is over the top.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
Update:
If Krugman says your shrill, then you are pretty damned shrill…
