The term “civility” has been tossed around quite a bit lately. Liberals are accusing conservatives of heated rhetoric. Conservatives are making similar charges toward their liberal opponents. Much of this debate is centered around those who support, and those who oppose Obamacare, and other Obama’s growth-of-government policies.
This week, the rhetoric reached a new, almost unthinkable level. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) launched a tirade against any Americans who support or attend a Tea Party, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan, George Wallace, and finally, to Nazis. He said the Tea Party on the South Lawn during the final vote on Obamacare was on the “verge of Kristallnacht.”
On the online Young Turks show, Cohen also said: “The Tea Party people are kind of, without robes and hoods, they have really shown a very hard angry side of America that is against any type of diversity.”
Let’s start with the Nazi reference. Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass, was what many historians mark as the beginning of Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution”, i.e. the genocide of the Holocaust. In November 1938, at the orders of Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, thousands of Hitler Youth, Gestapo and SS murdered German Jews, sent nearly 30,000 to concentration camps, destroyed 267 synagogues and ransacked thousands of homes and businesses.
Let the violent horror of that atrocity set into your mind. Now think back to a few weeks ago when thousands of multi-generational, multi-ethnic demonstrators congregated on Capitol Hill to voice opposition to Congressional legislation they felt violated the principles of our nation’s governance. Not exactly the same thing. So why the comparison?
Liberals will point to pictures of President Obama spotted sporadically at Tea Party gatherings that depict him as Hitler. These are equally abhorrent, and were so when they were created about President Bush as well. Tea Party leaders reject them. The worst kept secret in Washington however is that these are held by the supporters of seven-time fringe Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, which was confirmed by Rep. Barney Frank himself at a Town Hall meeting last year.
The Nazi comparison feeds a liberal narrative that the Tea Party is merely people resisting President Obama as the first African-American president, and not his policies. This narrative is convenient because it avoids an actual discussion on the details of the legislation or his policies. Arguing legislative details is tough for people who aren’t quite sure what the details are, or aren’t quite convinced how to defend them.
It is also based on the shock by some that anyone could be against federally controlled health care, jobs, energy or a reversal of decades old national security policies. Liberals felt they earned a mandate in November 2008, not towards a new direction in Washington, but to be a fundamentally different nation. Of course, this ignores the mandates that Tea Party supporters felt they earned in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia since then.
The second claim that Tea Partiers are merely KKK supporters minus the hoods is equally frustrating. Calling someone a racist ends reasonable dialogue. There is no clarifying comeback to it other than to honestly say “No, I’m not.” Any further defense elicits the “doth protest too much” offense.
The KKK earned their reputation in episodes that most Americans would like to forget. But the victims of these lynching, burnings, beatings, murders and intimidation will never forget them. Their children will never forget them. And as Americans, we must ensure episodes like them never happen again. There is only one current Member of Congress who can claim membership in the KKK. He is not a conservative.
To say that a group of peaceful American demonstrators fit the mold of the KKK is flat out insulting to the generations that endured and persevered in more trying times. It’s insulting to the heroes of the Civil Rights movement. Mostly this and the Nazi reference is insulting to African-American and Jewish conservatives who participate in a Tea Party. It’s contemptible.
According to Gallup, over 50 percent of people supportive of Tea Parties do not identify themselves as Republican. So electorally, it is in the best interests of conservatives to allow these attacks to continue. But in the interest of civility, mutual respect and an educated debate of ideas for our nation’s future, it needs to stop.
The fact that liberals also like to use graphic sexual innuendo that they would hopefully be embarrassed to describe to their children is the third leg of this stool, but falls into the sophomoric category rather than the historical slander we’re otherwise witnessing. Asking for it to stop is akin to asking a little boy to stop pulling the pig tails of a little girl.
Rep. Cohen is the first Jewish Congressman from Tennessee. His own family history includes immigrant grandparents from Lithuania, according to Wikipedia. Nearly 190,000 Jews were killed in Lithuania by the Nazis. In other words, he should know better.
So, the rational challenge is to stop all references to Nazism. End all references to the Ku Klux Klan. Whether you are a Democrat, independent or Republican, but especially if you are an elected leader, the use of these invectives must stop, or we risk degrading our civil relationships beyond repair, and insulting millions of victims that all Americans agree deserve honor and respect.
Rory Cooper is the Director of Strategic Communications at The Heritage Foundation. You can follow him on Twitter @rorycooper.