by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n This week\u2019s talking point is the sudden danger of new right-wing violence, and the inflammatory push-back against healthcare. I\u2019m sorry, but all this concern is a day late and a dollar short. The subtext is really one of class \u2014 right-wing radio talk-show hosts, Glenn Beck idiots, and crass tea-party yokels are foaming at the mouth and dangerous to progressives. In contrast, write a book in which you muse about killing George Bush, and its Knopf imprint proves it is merely sophisticated literary speculation; do a docudrama about killing George Bush, and it will win a Toronto film prize for its artistic value rather than shock from the liberal community about over-the-top discourse.<\/p>\n Socialism and totalitarianism are tough charges from the hard right, but they seem to me about as (or as not) over-the-top as Al Gore screaming \u201cdigital brown-shirts\u201d or John Glenn comparing the opposition to Nazis. When 3,000 were murdered in Manhattan, and Michael Moore suggested Bin Laden had wrongly targeted a blue state, I don\u2019t think that repulsive remark prevented liberal politicians from attending his anti-Bush film premiere. Yes, let us have a tough debate over the role of government and the individual, but spare us the melodrama, the bottled piety, and the wounded-fawn hurt.<\/p>\n Like it or not, between 2001 and 2008, the \u201cprogressive\u201d community redefined what is acceptable and not acceptable in political and public discourse about their elected officials. Slurs like \u201cNazi\u201d and \u201cfascist\u201d and \u201cI hate\u201d were no longer the old street-theater derangement of the 1960s, but were elevated to high-society novels, films, political journalism, and vein-bulging outbursts of our elites. If one were to take the word “Bush” and replace it with “Obama” in the work of a Nicholson Baker, or director Gabriel Range, or Garrison Keillor or Jonathan Chait, or in the rhetoric of a Gore or Moore, we would be presently in a national crisis, witnessing summits on the epidemic of “hate speech.”<\/p>\n So here we are with the age-old problem that once one destroys decorum for the sake of short-term expediency, it is very hard to restore it in any credible fashion on grounds of principle when the proverbial shoe is on the other foot. A modest suggestion: If the liberal community wishes to be more credible in its concern about contemporary extremist anti-administration rhetoric, then they might try the following: \u201cPlease, let us avoid extremism and do not fall into the same trap as Baker, Chait, Keillor, Gore, Moore, or Range when they either expressed open hatred toward their president, or speculated about the assassination of their president, or compared their president to a fascist. We must disown such extremism, past and present.”<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner This week\u2019s talking point is the sudden danger of new right-wing violence, and the inflammatory push-back against healthcare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[590],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-s7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4591,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-perfect-storm-of-hating-bush-part-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":1743,"position":0},"title":"The Perfect Storm of Hating Bush: Part I","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson This series written for\u00a0Private Papers\u00a0will appear in four parts. Part One The new candor about killing George Bush The American Left has become increasingly hysterical since September 11th. The symptoms of a new, disturbing extremism are manifest in a variety of forums that transcend legitimate political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2004"","block_context":{"text":"September 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/september-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1460,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-unbound\/","url_meta":{"origin":1743,"position":1},"title":"Obama Unbound","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser. To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11939,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/will-2020-be-a-repeat-of-2004-for-democrats\/","url_meta":{"origin":1743,"position":2},"title":"Will 2020 Be a Repeat of 2004 for Democrats?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Democrats by 2004 had become obsessed with defeating incumbent President George W. Bush. Four years earlier, in the 2000 election, Bush had won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. Democrats were still furious that Bush supposedly had been \u201cselected\u201d by the Supreme\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4609,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/george-bush-our-uncommon-hedgehog\/","url_meta":{"origin":1743,"position":3},"title":"George Bush, Our Uncommon Hedgehog","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The advantages of \"one big\" idea. by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers The greatest criticism of George Bush comes from the artistic and intellectual world. Alfred A. Knopf just published a novel by a prize-winning author about killing the President. The same theme of assassination is the stuff of off-Broadway\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2004"","block_context":{"text":"September 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/september-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10470,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10470-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1743,"position":4},"title":"From An Angry Reader: To:\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: To: Prof. Victor Davis Hanson \u00a0 At the end of your interview with Scott Simon on 8 July 2017 I heard this: \u201cAnd look how they took a good man like George Bush and turned him into a monster\u201d. It caught my attention. \u00a0 One of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3776,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberals-gone-wild\/","url_meta":{"origin":1743,"position":5},"title":"Liberals Gone Wild!","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Why do Republicans drive leftists so crazy these days? Liberal democrats are beginning to sound like rowdy students on spring break, shrieking and exhibiting themselves on camera. Consider some of the recent rabid outbursts by once sober, old-guard politicians. West Virginia Sen. Jay\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2006"","block_context":{"text":"October 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/october-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1744,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}