The Political Consequences of Violence
I believe that The New Yorker’s George Packer has mistaken the meaning of a line in my column this week. He writes:
Douthat wrote, in the spirit of phony equivalence, “If overheated rhetoric and martial imagery really led inexorably to murder, then both parties would belong in the dock,” but also this: “the attempted murder of a Democratic congresswoman is a potential gift to liberalism.” In other words, everyone goes over the line now and then, no one actually wants anyone dead, but one side kind of wouldn’t mind.
This also came up in a bloggingheads conversation with Michelle Goldberg, so let me clarify: In suggesting that the attempted murder of a Democratic congresswoman could redound to the benefit of her political party, I was by no means suggesting that liberals “wouldn’t mind” seeing a Democratic politician gunned down, because it might give them a boost at the polls. That would be at once offensive and absurd. Rather, I was expressing what I thought was just a truism of American politics — namely, that assassination attempts and other outbreaks of violence against politicians or public institutions usually make their targets more sympathetic and more popular, and inspire a general “rally-round-the-flag” effect that benefits (and is often effectively exploited by) whichever party occupies the Oval Office. This pattern has held regardless of the identity of the perpetrator and his motivations for violence: It was true with John Hinckley, true with Timothy McVeigh, true with Osama bin Laden. And I assumed that it would be true in this case as well, whatever Jared Lee Loughner’s specific reasons for shooting Gabrielle Giffords turned out to be.
However, after following almost a week of coverage and commentary, I think we may need to add an exception to that truism. That is, violence against elected officials tends to benefit whichever party seems to be targeted — except in cases where the attempts to immediately politicize the violence are this flagrant, this egregiously unfair, and this indifferent to the (still uncertain) facts of the case.
Douthat wrote, in the spirit of phony equivalence, “If overheated rhetoric and martial imagery really led inexorably to murder, then both parties would belong in the dock,” but also this: “the attempted murder of a Democratic congresswoman is a potential gift to liberalism.” In other words, everyone goes over the line now and then, no one actually wants anyone dead, but one side kind of wouldn’t mind.
This also came up in a bloggingheads conversation with Michelle Goldberg, so let me clarify: In suggesting that the attempted murder of a Democratic congresswoman could redound to the benefit of her political party, I was by no means suggesting that liberals “wouldn’t mind” seeing a Democratic politician gunned down, because it might give them a boost at the polls. That would be at once offensive and absurd. Rather, I was expressing what I thought was just a truism of American politics — namely, that assassination attempts and other outbreaks of violence against politicians or public institutions usually make their targets more sympathetic and more popular, and inspire a general “rally-round-the-flag” effect that benefits (and is often effectively exploited by) whichever party occupies the Oval Office. This pattern has held regardless of the identity of the perpetrator and his motivations for violence: It was true with John Hinckley, true with Timothy McVeigh, true with Osama bin Laden. And I assumed that it would be true in this case as well, whatever Jared Lee Loughner’s specific reasons for shooting Gabrielle Giffords turned out to be.
However, after following almost a week of coverage and commentary, I think we may need to add an exception to that truism. That is, violence against elected officials tends to benefit whichever party seems to be targeted — except in cases where the attempts to immediately politicize the violence are this flagrant, this egregiously unfair, and this indifferent to the (still uncertain) facts of the case.
