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Scorn in America: Right-wingers riled up, raging
Photo credit: Getty
Pundits have labeled President Barack Obama a racist. So-called birthers insist he was born in Kenya. An alleged killer contended that Obama “was created by Jews.”
Things have gotten ugly since the election of the nation’s first black president. From hateful talk to hate-fueled violence, right-wing extremism is spiking, experts said. “There’s a certain portion of our country that’s not digesting these changes very well,” said Heidi Beirich, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes. She pointed to recent attacks as the deadliest evidence of the trend. At the fringes
White supremacist James von Brunn, 89, faces trial in the fatal June shooting of a Holocaust museum guard in Washington, D.C. He had linked Obama to a Jewish conspiracy. Days earlier, anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder, 51, allegedly opened fire on Dr. George Tiller in Kansas. In April, Richard Poplawski, 22, who feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way,” was charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers. Closer to home, Nancy Genovese, 53, of Long Island, was armed with two guns when she was arrested last month for scouting out a National Guard base. She was a fan of Fox News host Glenn Beck, who has accused Obama of “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Todd Gitlin, author of “The Bulldozer and the Big Tent,” said many of these people “are disposed to think that the government policies they dislike — a tolerance for abortion, in particular — are not civil disagreements but criminal conspiracies they must act with criminal actions to stop.” For certain, radicalism reflects the party in power, experts said. Republican administrations typically prompt left-wing violence while Democratic ones face right-wing attacks. The left-wing anti-Vietnam War and anti-government violence that erupted in the 1960s and ’70s, mostly had tapered off by the ’80s, experts said. The Clinton administration and the ’90s instead were marred by far-right radicalism such as the Waco, Texas, massacre and the Oklahoma City bombing. Since 1975, there have been 75 known right-wing domestic terrorist plots, Beirich said, adding that 926 hate groups existed nationwide last year compared with 602 in 2000. As president, Obama has faced 400 percent more threats than the 3,000 or so George W. Bush received each year, according to Ronald Kessler’s book “In the President’s Secret Service.” On the air
Beck and other conservative media personalities — or “cheerleaders who wear ties and suits” — are feeding the fury, said Gitlin, a Columbia University professor. Bill O’Reilly, who had dubbed Tiller a “baby killer,” was scrutinized after the doctor’s slaying. Other conservative talking heads accused of acerbic accusations include Michael Savage, Brit Hume, Rush Limbaugh and “birther” Lou Dobbs, of CNN. “There are degrees of culpability here,” said David Neiwert, author of “The Eliminationists.” Violent extremists “are several steps beyond Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly. But when they hear them validating their beliefs, this has a sort of triggering effect.” To combat such allegations, Beck recently condemned fringe extremists, saying: “If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the republic.” Plenty of vicious rhetoric also can be found on the left, Neiwert said. But while far-left hate talk mostly comes from anonymous bloggers and minor figures, the conservative talking heads are reaching audiences of millions, he said. Such ugliness ultimately threatens to marginalize mainstream Republicans and thwarts the rebuilding of the GOP, Neiwert said. “It’s unfortunate because genuine conservatives are an important part of our body of politics.”(Photo: Investigators probe the Holocaust museum shooting in June. Getty)
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