This afternoon, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) gave a speech in
which he quoted Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay, "The
Paranoid Style in American Politics" and accused ObamaCare
opponents of inciting "vindictive passions":
"Far from appealing to the better angels of our nature, too
many colleagues are embarked on a desperate no-holds-barred
mission of propaganda, obstruction and
fear. History cautions us of the excesses to
which these malignant, vindictive
passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrils have
rolled through taunting crowds, broken glass has
sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has
hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of
government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner
waving secret lists." (Emphasis
added.)
A full text of Sen. Whitehouse's remarks is not yet available,
but at this moment, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is rebutting the
Democrat's accusations. And, by the way, that Senate tail-gunner
was right about one thing: There were indeed Soviet
agents in the State Department.
UPDATE: More from the Whitehouse
speech, referring to Hofstadter's "paranoid style" thesis:
"Vindictive passions often arise, [Hofstadter] points out, when
an aggrieved minority believes that America has been taken away
from them their kind, though they are determined to try to
repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of
subversion. Does that sound familiar . . . in this health
debate? . . . [Hofstadter] wrote of the dangers of an aggrieved
right-wing minority with the power to create what he called a
political climate in which the rational pursuit of our
well-being and safety would become impossible."
It's interesting -- but probably no accident -- that the
first Republican to respond to Whitehouse's provocative remarks
was Kyl of Arizona. In 1964, Hofstadter's essay was taken as an
analysis of the conservative supporters of another Arizona
Republican, Barry Goldwater.
By the way, these quotes are taken from an audio rush
transcript of Sen. Whitehouse's speech, the official text of
which has not yet been published.
UPDATE II: More from the transcript
of the Whitehouse speech:
"[Republicans have engaged in] a campaign of falsehood about
death panels and cuts to Medicare benefits and benefits for
illegal aliens and bureaucrats to be parachuted in between you
and your doctor. Our colleagues terrify the public with this
parade of imagined horrors. They whip up concerns and
anxiety about socialized medicine and careening deficits and
then they tell use the public is concerned about the bill."
UPDATE III: Accusing the bill’s
opponents of inflaming “unprecedented passions,” Whitehouse
blamed the GOP for the extension of the health-care debate into
the Christmas holiday:
“We see it in bad behavior. We see it in the long hours of
reading by the clerks our Republican colleagues have forced. We
see it in Christmases and holidays ruined by the Republicans
for our loyal and professional Senate employees. It’s fine for
me. It’s fine for the president. We signed up for the his job,
but why ruin it for all the employees condemned by the
Republicans to be here?”
UPDATE IV: If you voted Republican,
here is how Sen. Whitehouse describes you:
“Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented
destructive action? All to break the momentum of our young
president. They are desperate to break this president. They
have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very
election of President Barack Obama. The ‘birthers,’ the
fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militias and
Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President
Obama should exist.”
OK, so much for all those Aryan militia fanatics who vote
Republican, what does Sen. Whitehouse think of the Senators those
voters elected?
“Our colleagues are behaving in this way – unprecedented,
malignant and vindictive – because they are desperate to avoid
that day of judgment, frantic and desperate now and willing to
strange and unprecedented things, willing to do anything, even
throw our troops at war in the way of that day of reckoning. If
they can cause this bill to fail, the truth will never stand up
as a living reproach to the lies that have been told. . . . But
when the bill passes and this program actually comes to life .
. . there will come a day of judgment, and our Republican
friends know that. That, Mr. President, is why they are
terrified.”
There you have it, then: Nazis and militia kooks elect lying
Republican senators who ruin Christmas and who oppose the bill
only because they want to "break" the president and are terrified
that if the bill passes, it will expose how they've engaged in
fear-mongering propaganda.
Amazing that in his 1,700 word speech, Sen. Whitehouse
didn't find time to accuse his opponents of being "divisive" and
"polarizing."
UPDATE V:
Excerpts of Sen. Jon Kyle's response.
