Politics

Liberal groups send message to the Tea Party: ‘Don’t stomp on me’

Alexis Levinson Political Reporter
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Liberal organizations are one-upping the Tea Party’s “Don’t tread on me” slogan with a new “You can’t stomp on me” campaign. Liberal organizations MoveOn.org, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and CREDO are uniting in reaction to the incident on Monday when a volunteer for Republican Rand Paul’s campaign for U.S. Senate in Kentucky literally stomped his foot on activist Laura Valle, leaving her with a concussion.

The organization is calling on people to take a picture of themselves with a sign that says, “You can’t stomp on me,” and then upload the picture to the site. “By uploading your picture,” reads the e-mail, “you can show that your voice will not be silenced even in the face of intimidating and thuggish behavior. We’ll put all the photos in one public place as a statement of solidarity with Lauren and a promise to keep speaking out.”

The perpetrator has since called on Valle to apologize to him, saying, “she instigated it!” He has refused to apologize to her.

Echoing Chris Matthews’ statement on “Hardball” Wednesday night that Tea Party supporters are behaving in a way that “isn’t far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform,” the e-mail denounces the fact that “Violence has been far too prevalent this entire election season, with both men and women getting roughed up by right-wing thugs.”

“The Tea Party has shown it wants to return us to a time when overt racism is considered acceptable civil discourse,” wrote Ilyse Hogue, Stephanie Taylor, Becky Bond of MoveOn, PCCC, and Credo. “And if women get hurt, well they must have done something to deserve it. This stops here and now.”