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Đe dọa, hành hung, bạo lực đang là các thủ đoạn đi vào giòng chính

From Lão Ông
on 2021-11-14 15:40

Đe dọa, hành hung, bạo lực đang là các thủ đoạn đi vào giòng chính của đảng Cộng Hòa do xu hướng Mỹ trắng phản động chống lại các nỗ lực tiến bộ của phe Dân Chủ

Lịch sử chính trị Mỹ đầy bạo động và giết chóc. Đã có 5 vụ ám sát tổng thống Mỹ :
Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John F Kennedy, và Ronald Reagan.

Trong đó Lincoln và Kennedy bị giết chết

Đọc bài dưới đây để rõ hơn.

Palm Beach Post (newsmemory.com)
Menace, as a political tool, enters the GOP mainstream

The New York Times
Lisa Lerer and Astead W. Herndon

At a conservative rally in western Idaho last month, a young man stepped up to a microphone to ask when he could start killing Democrats.

"When do we get to use the guns?" he said as the audience applauded. "How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?" The local state representative, a Republican, later called it a "fair" question.
In Ohio, the leading candidate in the Republican primary for Senate blasted out a video urging Republicans to resist the "tyranny" (mask & vaccine mandate) of a federal government that pushed them to wear masks and take vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.

"Khi nào chúng ta sử dụng súng?" ông nói khi khán giả vỗ tay. "Họ sẽ đánh cắp bao nhiêu cuộc bầu cử trước khi chúng ta giết những người này?" Đại diện của bang địa phương, một đảng viên Đảng Cộng hòa, đã gọi đó là một câu hỏi "công bằng". Ở Ohio, ứng cử viên hàng đầu trong cuộc bầu cử sơ bộ của đảng Cộng hòa vào Thượng viện đã tung ra một video kêu gọi đảng Cộng hòa chống lại "chế độ chuyên chế" của chính phủ liên bang đã buộc họ phải đeo khẩu trang và uống vắc xin được Cục Quản lý Thực phẩm và Dược phẩm cho phép.

"When the Gestapo (Democrat government) show up at your front door," the candidate, Josh Mandel, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, said in the video in September, "you know what to do." And in Congress, violent threats against lawmakers are on track to double this year.

Republicans who break party ranks and defy former President Donald Trump have come to expect insults, invective and death threats — often stoked by their own colleagues and conservative activists, who have denounced them as traitors (to Trump).

Những đảng viên Cộng hòa phá vỡ hàng ngũ đảng và thách thức cựu Tổng thống Donald Trump đã phải bị những lời lăng mạ, hành động thô bạo và đe dọa cái chết - thường bị các đồng nghiệp và các nhà hoạt động bảo thủ của chính họ, những người đã tố cáo họ là những kẻ phản bội (đối với Trump).

From congressional offices to community meeting rooms, threats of violence are becoming commonplace among a significant segment of the Republican Party. Ten months after rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and after four years of a president who often spoke in violent terms about his adversaries, right-wing Republicans are talking more openly and frequently about the use of force as justifiable in opposition to those who dislodged him (trump) from power. In Washington, D.C., where decorum and civility are still given lip service, violent or threatening language still remains uncommon, if not unheard- of, among lawmakers who spend a great deal of time in the same building. But among the most fervent conservatives, who play an outsize role in primary contests and provide the party with its activist energy, the belief that the country is at a crossroads that could require armed confrontation is no longer limited to the fringe (nth : it is in the mainstream now).
Political violence has been part of the American story since the founding of the country, often entwined with racial politics and erupting in periods of great change .
(nth : a total of four presidents have been assassinated in American politics, i.e. Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John F Kennedy ... not to mention an unsucessful attempt on Ronald Reagan)


How Many U.S. Presidents Have Been Assassinated? (thoughtco.com)

Learn about the four U.S. presidents who have been assassinated in the nation's history. Find out about other no...

More than 70 brawls, duels and other violent incidents embroiled members of Congress from 1830 to 1860 alone. And elements of the left have contributed to the confrontational tenor of the country's current politics, although Democratic leaders routinely condemn violence and violent imagery. But historians and those who study democracy say what has changed has been the embrace of violent speech by a sizable portion of one party (Republican), including some of its loudest voices inside (trump) government and most influential voices outside.

In effect, they warn, the Republican Party is mainstreaming menace (murderous threats) as a political tool. Omar Wasow, a political scientist at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., who studies protests and race, drew a contrast between the current climate and earlier periods of turbulence and strife, such as the 1960s or the run-up to the Civil War.
"What's different about almost all those other events is that now, there's a partisan divide around the legitimacy of our political system," he said. "The elite endorsement of political violence from factions of the Republican Party is distinct for me from what we saw in the 1960s. Then, you didn't have — from a president on down — politicians calling citizens to engage in violent resistance."

Trên thực tế, họ cảnh báo, Đảng Cộng hòa đang đem vào dòng chính sự đe dọa (đe dọa giết người) như một công cụ chính trị. Omar Wasow, một nhà khoa học chính trị tại Cao đẳng Pomona ở Claremont, California, người nghiên cứu về các cuộc biểu tình và chủng tộc, đã vẽ ra sự tương phản giữa không khí chính trị hiện tại và các giai đoạn hỗn loạn và xung đột trước đó, chẳng hạn như những năm 1960 hoặc trước Nội chiến.
Ông nói: “Điều khác biệt về hầu hết tất cả các sự kiện khác là hiện nay, có sự chia rẽ đảng phái xung quanh tính hợp pháp của hệ thống chính trị của chúng ta. "Sự ủng hộ của giới tinh hoa đối với bạo lực chính trị từ các phe phái của Đảng Cộng hòa đối với tôi khác với những gì chúng ta đã thấy trong những năm 1960.

From Trump's earliest campaigning to the final moments of his presidency, his political image has incorporated the possibility of violence. He encouraged attendees at his rallies to "knock the hell" out of protesters, praised a lawmaker who bodyslammed a reporter and in a recent interview defended rioters who clamored to "hang Mike Pence." (nth : trump also said of the BLM protests, "when the looting begins, the shooting begins")

Từ chiến dịch tranh cử đầu tiên của Trump cho đến những giây phút cuối cùng của nhiệm kỳ tổng thống, hình ảnh chính trị của ông đã bao hàm khả năng bạo lực. Ông khuyến khích những người tham dự các cuộc biểu tình của mình đánh cho mấy người biểu tình thấy địa ngục, ca ngợi một nhà lập pháp đã xúc phạm một phóng viên và trong một cuộc phỏng vấn gần đây đã bảo vệ những kẻ bạo loạn đòi "treo cổ Mike Pence". (nth: trump cũng nói về các cuộc biểu tình BLM, "hễ cướp bóc bắt đầu, thì bắt đầu nổ súng")

Yet, even with Trump largely out of the public eye and after the deadly attack on the Capitol, where rioters tried to overturn the presidential election, the Republican acceptance of violence has only spread. Polling indicates that 30% of Republicans and 40% of people who "most trust" far-right news sources believe that "true patriots" may have to resort to violence to "save" the country — a statement that gets far less support among Democrats and independents.

Thăm dò ý kiến cho thấy 30% đảng viên Đảng Cộng hòa và 40% những người "tin tưởng nhất" các nguồn tin tức cực hữu cho rằng "những người yêu nước chân chính" có thể phải dùng đến bạo lực để "cứu" đất nước.

Such views, routinely expressed in warlike or revolutionary terms, are often intertwined with white racial resentments and evangelical Christian religious fervor — two potent sources of fuel for the GOP during the Trump era — as the most animated Republican voters increasingly see themselves as participants in a struggle, if not a kind of holy war, to preserve their idea of (white) American culture and their place in society.

Notably few Republican leaders have spoken out against violent language or behavior since Jan. 6, suggesting with their silent acquiescence that doing so would put them at odds with a significant share of their party's voters. When the Idaho man asked about "killing" political opponents at an event hosted by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Kirk said he must "denounce" the question but went on to discuss at what point political violence could be justified.

In that vacuum, the coarsening of Republican messaging has continued: Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., last week tweeted an anime video altered to show him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and swinging two swords at President Joe Biden.

Democrats are seeking Gosar's censure, arguing that "depictions of violence can foment actual violence and jeopardize the safety of elected officials."

The ranking GOP lawmakers, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. McCarthy, who initially condemned the Jan. 6 attack and said "violence is never a legitimate form of protest," more recently has joked about hitting Nancy Pelosi in the head with a gavel if he were to replace her as speaker. Like nearly all of the members of his caucus, McCarthy has said nothing about Gosar's video.

For his part, Gosar suggested that critics were overly thin-skinned, insisting that the video was an allegory for a debate over immigration policy. He was slaying "the policy monster of open borders," not Ocasio-Cortez or Biden, his office said. "It is a symbolic cartoon. It is not real life."

Carlos Curbelo, a Republican former congressman from Florida and a critic of Trump's, said Republicans needed to take a stronger approach against violent language and intimidation tactics.
"I do think the problem is more acute among Republicans because there are a handful of Republican officials who have no limits," he said. "Your country and your integrity should be more important to you than your reelection."

Carlos Curbelo, một cựu nghị sĩ đảng Cộng hòa từ Florida và là người chỉ trích Trump, cho rằng đảng Cộng hòa cần có cách tiếp cận mạnh mẽ hơn chống lại các thủ đoạn dùng ngôn ngữ bạo lực và đe dọa.
Ông nói: “Tôi nghĩ rằng vấn đề nghiêm trọng hơn ở những người theo Đảng Cộng hòa vì có một số ít các quan chức của Đảng Cộng hòa không có giới hạn. "Đất nước của bạn và sự chính trực của bạn nên quan trọng hơn đối với bạn hơn là sự tái đắc cử của bạn."

The increasing violence of Republican speech has been accompanied by a willingness of GOP leaders to follow Trump's lead and shrug off allegations of domestic violence that once would have been considered disqualifying for political candidates in either party.

Herschel Walker, a former professional football player running for Senate in Georgia, is accused of repeatedly threatening his ex-wife's life, but he won Trump's endorsement and appears to be consolidating party support behind his candidacy. Trump also backed the Ohio congressional campaign of Max Miller, who faces allegations of violence from his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. Miller has sued Grisham for defamation.

Sean Parnell, a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania who was endorsed by Trump, appeared in court last week in a custody fight in which his estranged wife accuses him of choking her and physically harming their children. He denies it.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, declined to repudiate Parnell. Asked on CNN whether Parnell was the right candidate for the job, he said, "We'll see who comes out of the primary."

There is little indication that the party has paid a political price for its increasingly violent tone.

Even after corporations and donors vowed to withhold donations to the GOP in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack, Republicans outraised Democrats this year. And they outperformed expectations in the elections this month.

Yet, violent talk has tipped over into actual violence in ways big and small. School board members and public health officials have faced a wave of threats, prompting hundreds to leave their posts.

A recent investigation by Reuters documented nearly 800 intimidating messages to election officials in 12 states.
And threats against members of Congress have jumped by 107% compared with the same period in 2020, according to the Capitol Police.

Một cuộc điều tra gần đây của Reuters đã ghi lại gần 800 tin nhắn đe dọa các quan chức bầu cử ở 12 tiểu bang.
Và các mối đe dọa chống lại các thành viên Quốc hội đã tăng 107% so với cùng kỳ năm 2020, theo Cảnh sát Capitol.

Lawmakers have been harassed at airports, targeted at their homes and had family members threatened.

"You don't understand how awful it is and how scary it is until you're in it," said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who praised a Republican colleague, Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, for publicly sharing some of the threats he received after voting to approve the infrastructure bill. (Upton's office did not respond to requests for comment.)

"But not telling people that this violence isn't OK makes people think it is OK."

CARLOS BERNATE/NYT

Attendees pray during the Take Back Virginia (for whites) Rally in Richmond, Va., on Oct. 13. From congressional offices to community meeting rooms, threats of violence are becoming commonplace among a significant segment of the Republican Party, less than a year after rioters attacked the United States Capitol on Jan. 6.

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