The Elephant in the Room

Bob Shrum: Imagine if after that had happened (the Rodney King riots), Michelle Bachmann, the Republican congresswoman has said she wants people in Minnesota “armed and dangerous,” imagine if Jesse Jackson had said that, or imagine if Maxine Waters had said that. I think what gives this its power and currency is the apparent ratification of it by a lot of Republican members of congress, people standing out there…

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The elephant in the room – the proliferation of guns in the US, coupled with incendiary rhetoric on all levels of the right, from obscure bloggers to Republican senators – is briefly touched upon at the end of this discussion on Morning Joe. Before that, you have Bob Shrum making a salient point about Republican lawmakers egging on the fringe elements in the Tea Party movement, and Pat Buchanan making the astounding assertion that the right didn’t “go off the rails” after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which Bob Shrum thoughtfully reminds us Pat Buchanan opposed.)

Pat Buchanan: He mentioned the Civil Rights Act of 1964…

Bob Shrum: Are you still against it?

Joe Scarborough: Oh wow…

Pat Buchanan: No, no,..Who went off the rails? Did the Goldwater people go out into the street and riot? The riot was in Harlem that year! 500 people injured, 500 arrested, billions and millions of damage done….

For the record, no, the “Goldwater people” did not riot or otherwise resort to violence. They were, however, quite happy to exploit those elements of the right wing who did, the white supremacist southern Democrats outraged by the Democratic party’s support for black Civil rights. Remember? The thugs who were not only shrieking threats and obscenities at schoolchildren walking to integrated schools, but were in some cases firebombing black churches, beating up black civil rights demonstrators, and occasionally murdering civil rights activists?

As for right wingers showing up at public venues packing heat, no, it was not “just one” demonstrator, as these panelists hasten to reassure each other. In addition to the guy at the rally last summer who was carrying a loaded gun and that sign about the tree of liberty being watered, there was the fellow in Minnesota, a convicted felon, who was hanging around with a couple of loaded guns outside a venue where President Obama was speaking.

And let’s not forget that Tea Party sign that seemed to sum up the implicit message behind the repeated invocation of gun imagery by the right: