Republican Threat Strategy Impacts Americans in All Walks of Life
Senators say airplane miscreants shouldn’t be blacklisted. Congressmen cry foul when the Attorney General says threats against school boards should be monitored. One in three election workers feel unsafe in their jobs.
The list goes on and on. Just about every sector of public service is seeing a rise in public behavior that is at a minimum, antisocial. Oftentimes it’s worse. And while you’ll be hard pressed to find a direct connection, I’m willing to say these malcontents are drawing their inspiration from certain Republicans.
Eight Republican senators signed off on a letter Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland expressing opposition to a proposed federal “no-fly” list for unruly airline passengers.
Their argument is that such a list would essentially draw an equivalence between terrorists and opponents of mask mandates. According to Federal Aviation Administration data, the vast majority of reports of unruly passengers have been related to the mandated use of face masks amid the pandemic.
From the Washington Post:
As recently as last weekend, two American Airlines flights were forced to divert from their destinations because of unruly passengers. In one case, a passenger attempted to open the main passenger door while the aircraft was in flight.
In a separate incident, a Delta Air Lines passenger allegedly tried to open an emergency door in flight last week in the hope that other passengers would record him sharing his views on coronavirus vaccines.
The Federal Aviation Administration says that 4,290 of the 5,981 unruly passenger incidents were mask-related in 2021.
After having to take our shoes off, emptying all the metal from our pockets, and giving up a ton of personal information just to board a plane for the past twenty years, the last thing most of us want to witness is a performative attempt at victimization.
Being banned from one airline doesn’t prevent these types from booking a flight on another carrier, endangering yet another couple hundred travelers.
There is a larger point to be concerned with here, namely the increasing overlap between potential or real violence and elected Republicans. Threats against various categories of humans have become endemic, and reactionary causes are the commonality with the vast majority of them.
Airlines are just one arena for this low-level insurgent behavior. Margaret Atwood, author of the increasingly prescient Handmaid's Tale, has a good perspective:
Elected officials are being bombarded with threats. Here’s what it’s like on Capitol Hill, via the New York Times:
Overall, threats against members of Congress reached a record high of 9,600 last year, according to data provided by the Capitol Police, double the previous year’s total. In the first three months of 2021 alone, the Capitol Police fielded more than 4,100 threats against lawmakers in the House and Senate, straining the law enforcement personnel tasked with investigating them.
“We’re barely keeping our head above water for those investigations,” J. Thomas Manger, the Capitol Police chief, testified last month. “We’re going to have to nearly double the number of agents who work those threat cases.”
Threats against members of Congress jumped more than fourfold after Mr. Trump took office. In 2016, the Capitol Police investigated 902 threats; the following year, that number reached 3,939.
The situation with election workers is so bad that states are considering legislation specifically making threats a crime.
Reuters has documented more than 850 threatening and hostile messages aimed at election officials and staff related to the 2020 election. Virtually all expressed support for former President Donald Trump or echoed his debunked contention that the election was stolen. The messages spanned 30 jurisdictions in 16 states. They came via emails, voicemails, texts, letters and Internet posts.
School board members nationwide are being deluged witty threats, and there is a distinct pattern. One of the right’s culture war issues (i.e., CRT, LBBTQ, book banning) comes up for discussion, and the threats begin.
From Daily Kos:
Here’s a sampling of what school board members actually faced. Brenda Sheridan in Loudoun County, Virginia, got threats including: “Brenda, I am going to gut you like the fat f‑‑‑ing pig you are when I find you.” One of her adult children even got a letter threatening, “It is too bad that your mother is an ugly communist whore. If she doesn’t quit or resign before the end of the year, we will kill her, but first, we will kill you!”
But when the Justice Department says it’s going to track such threats, here’s what Sen. Tom Cotton had to say: “Is it domestic extremism for a parent to advocate for their child’s best interests?”
”You better grow eyes in the back of your head motherf‑‑‑er,” said a threat to the school board in Pennsbury, Pennsylvania. Another said, “This why hitler threw you c‑‑ts in a gas chamber.”
When email threats won’t do, legislative efforts at denigration are employed. In Texas, where a front on the culture wars opens daily, 66% of teachers say they’re considering leaving the profession.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says, if re-elected he’ll push for a “parents bill of rights “
The proposed bill that would allow parents to decide if their children have to repeat failed courses and potentially place teachers on a "do not hire" list for providing students with materials deemed 'obscene' by the state.
Nurses and doctors at facilities where patients are being treated for COVID 19 are regularly being harassed or threatened. Some hospitals have begun advising employees not to wear work related garb coming to and from work.
From CBS News:
Nearly a quarter of public health workers report feeling bullied, harassed or threatened due to their work as the pandemic was unfolding, with 1 in 8 saying they had received job-related threats. That's according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. Marshall's Service says federal judges were the target of more than 4,500 threats and other inappropriate communications last year.
"The increase in our judicial ... threat investigations and inappropriate comments have been going up quite frankly for a couple of years," Ronald Davis, director of the U.S. Marshals Service, told journalists in a conference call. He said the threat risk is "growing exponentially."
Federal law enforcement officials have sounded alarm bells about a growing tide of threats posed by white supremacists and anti-government activists, many of whom have touted former Republican President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Several news organizations have launched investigations into the rising tide of implicit terrorism, including Reuters and the New York Times.
I don’t think they’ll find a vast conspiracy. Instead, I think they’ll find that we’re becoming a nation of lone wolves, incited by the inflammatory rhetoric coming (mostly) from right wing politicians.
I get it when people say you can’t run for office on an anti-Trump campaign. This is about more than the ex-president.
A small group of politically powerful Americans (gotta include the donors) has decided that violence against public servants and workers as collateral damage for achieving their ideological goals is acceptable.
When asked to denounce the hate, they’ll deflect 100% of the time. We need to keeping hammering on their acceptance of lone wolf terrorism as acceptable. It needs to become part of their brand.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com