The Threat of the Extreme Right

If one wants to see the danger posed by the extreme far right which is anti-minority, anti-immigrant and which glorifies violent rhetoric, one need look no further than Norway's confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik. The Globe and Mail (read the full article) has coverage on the unrepentant Breivik's description of his plan of mass murder and his motivations that sound frighteningly like something out of the Tea Party and some of the white supremacy leaning members of the Republican Party base:

Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik planned to capture and decapitate former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland during his shooting massacre on Utoya island, he said Thursday. . . .

On the fourth day of his trial on terror charges, Mr. Breivik said he also planned to kill many more than the 69 people who died on the island, where nearly 600 people from Labor youth groups from around Norway were gathered for their annual summer retreat. “The goal was not to kill 69 people on Utoya. The goal was to kill them all,” Mr. Breivik said.

Mr. Breivik has confessed to the attacks but rejects criminal guilt, saying he was acting to protect Norway and Europe by targeting left-wing political forces he claims have betrayed the country by opening it up to immigration. . . . he said the “Knights Templar” will lead a revolt against “multiculturalist” governments around Europe, with the aim of deporting Muslims.

The bit about protecting one's nation sounds familiar? Breivik merely put this kind of anti-minority and anti-diversity rhetoric into practice and in the process demonstrated what the the fruits of unrelenting hatred towards others can look like. His actions should have been a wake up call, yet we see the same extremism continually voiced by America's far right right up to the present. A column in the Washington Post looks at the dangerous rhetoric here in America. These are excerpts:

Not all overheated political rhetoric is alike. Delusional right-wing crazy talk — the kind of ranting we’ve heard recently from washed-up rock star Ted Nugent and Tea Party-backed Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) — is a special kind of poison that cannot be safely ignored.

Let me be clear: I’m saying that the extreme language we hear from the far right is qualitatively different from the extreme language we hear from the far left — and far more damaging to the ties that bind us as a nation. Tut-tutting that both sides should tone it down is meaningless. For all intents and purposes, one side is the problem.

Nugent, who delivered his foaming-at-the-mouth peroration at a National Rifle Association convention, earned a visit from the Secret Service with his promise that “if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

That might or might not constitute an actual threat to the president of the United States. More chilling, to me, was the way his audience of gun enthusiasts applauded in agreement as Nugent compared the Obama administration to a bunch of “coyotes in your living room” who deserve to be shot. Nugent ended by exhorting his listeners: “We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. . . . “If you can’t go home and get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don’t even know what you’re made of.”

Vile? Evil? America-hating? Nugent doesn’t just characterize those with different political views as misguided or wrong. He seeks to paint them as alien and anti-American — as enemies of this nation, rather than citizens with whom he disagrees.

It would be one thing if this sort of vicious intolerance came only from aging rockers whose brains may have been scrambled by all those high-decibel performances. But it comes, too, from an elected member of the House of Representatives. At a town hall meeting last week in Palm City, Fla., West was asked how many Marxists there are in Congress. He replied, “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party who are members of the Communist Party.”

So this is what I want to know: Mitt Romney, do you agree with your prominent endorser Ted Nugent that the Obama administration is evil and hates America? House Speaker John Boehner, do you agree with your star freshman West that “78 to 81” of your colleagues are card-carrying communists?

For too long the GOP leadership has refused to denounce this kind of extremist and potentially violence inducing rhetoric. This silence sends a strong message to the vilest haters that their incendiary talk is perfectly fine and acceptable. When will we see an American version of Breivik take this language to heart and act on it?