The New Political Activism - Do as I Say… or Else

 

“You’re not going to have doctors willing to be public health officers if people 

are going to go to their houses and threaten them and their families.” 

California State Senator, Richard Pan

Most of the bullying and violent threats against public officials or facilities (like vaccination centers, liberal organizations and abortion clinics) come from right-wing extremists. There is very little evidence that there is a parallel effort from centrists and liberals. This is part of a fascinating but exceptionally disturbing trend of squeaky/threatening wheel minorities effectively taking control of major national priorities, strategic votes in Congress and state legislatures as well as the elections themselves. These minorities seem to run America today.

These minority militants clearly have embraced voter restrictions from outright suppression and gerrymandering to empowering legislatures and election officials to challenge if not reverse popular votes. They are supported by the Constitution that gives states two Senators each regardless of population and a highly partisan US Supreme Court that appears to be deaf to clear evidence of extreme red state distortions of voting rights unambiguously focused on denying votes to minorities likely to skew Democrat. Along with a rather large assemblage of elected officials, from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to House member Marjorie Taylor Green to Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.

We are witnessing well-armed and/or lockstep militants willing to invade personal spaces to confront and intimidate officials, employees and representatives that are associated with “stuff we don’t like,” a the new normal. They camp out on the lawns of the homes of these “we don’t like you or what you stand for” individuals, approach and block entryways, roads and access points… often make death threats (including to family members and children), bring weapons openly carried under too many state laws, build militant social media blocs to extend the intimidation to bombarding their victims with varying forms of verbal (and a lot more) attacks and threats, and occasionally assemble mobs to descend upon their political victims where they least expect it and where their victims are easily intimidated.

We can see the result in the resignation of ordinary bureaucrats and election officials from both parties who cannot stand to live among the threats they have received by right-wingers holding them responsible for the “fraudulent election” of Joe Biden or a slew of victorious democrats or for fostering vaccinations, etc. We can also see angry citizens, like Kyle Rittenhouse, who honestly believe that they can carry an assault rifle into a protest under the color of law, carefully monitoring those who protest against their point of view. This is the legacy of Donald Trump, who continues (rather successfully) to threaten and purge members of his own party who will not support his dramatically unfounded position that the election was stolen from him. It is not hard to trace the transition of a Trump speech immediately followed by a violent right-wing attack.

Over the years, we have witnessed assassinations of abortion clinic doctors, and more recently, torch-bearing marching white supremacists (“fine people”) chanting “they shall not replace us” resulting in the murder of one who protested against their militancy, armed right-wing militia told by the President of the United States to “stand back and stand by,” uniformed self-proclaimed “soldiers” standing armed outside the Michigan capitol waiting to “arrest” (kidnap) and perhaps execute the governor, an out-and-out assault on the Capitol of the United States to try and stop the certification of a bona fide election… and the list goes on and on. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have declared that domestic terrorism is our nation’s greatest existential threat, far outweighing the dangers of foreign terrorists operating on US soil.

Even in the most basic moments in the lives of “people just doing their jobs,” the threats and intimidation are real… and growing. As we watch nations like Italy, Canada and even China contain COVID with mandatory vaccination policies, with much more success than we have even with freely available vaccines and boosters, the United States is still lumbering under a start-stop-reverse COVID surge reality from tens of millions of Americans, eligible for free and a clearly effective vaccination, that obviously keeps our economy from stabilizing and prices returning to a “normal supply chain” status. 

Citing non-existent “constitutional rights” and idiotic false narratives, from hidden microchips to greater dangers from the vaccine than a disease that has come close to killing 800,000 Americans, anti-vaxxers are getting desperate. Police and fire unions are suing to stop mandatory vaccinations, the Senate has passed a symbolic GOP-led anti-employer vax mandate vote, and there is this militant self-righteous belief in anti-vaxxers that they have a right to do whatever they believe necessary to stop the necessary medical preventatives from being deployed.

Writing for the December 10th Los Angeles Times, OpEd contributor Michael Hiltzik presents yet another example of this “new normal” and increasingly acceptable form of intimidation: “‘It was a terrifying experience,’ Kristina Lawson says… The president of the Medical Board of California, Lawson was recounting how she was stalked and intimidated by men who identified themselves as representatives of America’s Frontline Doctors, an anti-vaccine organization… Inside the parking garage attached to her San Francisco Bay Area law office Monday evening, she says, four men jumped out of an SUV that had been parked head-to-head with her car…

“Wielding cameras and recording equipment, they confronted her as she tried to get into her car to drive home… That was at the end of a day that she said had begun with a white SUV parked across from her driveway, and a drone flown over her house… ‘They watched my daughter drive herself to school and watched me walk out of my house, get in my car, and take my two kids to school,’ Lawson wrote on Twitter. ‘That evening ... they ambushed me in a dark parking garage when they suspected I would be alone.’.. Sadly, she’s not alone in feeling harassed. Anti-vaccination activists have become more intimidating and physical during the pandemic, in some cases driving public health officials to resign their posts…

“‘At least 300 public health department leaders have left their posts since the pandemic began, impacting 20% of Americans,’ [National Assn. of County and City Health Officials] said. ‘In many cases, they have been verbally abused and physically threatened. Their personal information has been shared, their families targeted and their offices attacked. They have been politically scapegoated by some elected officials and either fired or forced to leave their positions for standing up for the health of their communities.’…

“In August 2020, Michelle Mello of Stanford and colleagues attributed the intensity of attacks on several other factors: ‘The general decline in civility in political discourse in the U.S., [which] has made ad hominem attacks commonplace and hollowed out traditional ways of grappling with value conflicts,’ they wrote. ‘Social media amplifies such attacks.... The environment deteriorates further when elected leaders attack their own public health officials.’” 

At what point does our right of free expression under the First Amendment cross the line into a criminal act? The answer seems fairly obvious: the intention to intimidate and force a point of view versus a simple protest and statement of position. So, I will leave you with a final thought, one which is the result of research on why a medical pandemic became horribly politicized: “A new study could shed light: Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, it suggests political polarization increases as people retreat into their party identities. But more worryingly, it also suggests there exists a political ‘tipping point, beyond which extreme polarization becomes irreversible.’ If warring factions reach that point—even if the whole country were attacked by some foreign power—teamwork would be a lost cause. ‘Instead of uniting against a common threat,’ said Michael Macy, a Cornell professor and the study’s lead author, ‘the threat itself becomes yet another polarizing issue.’ ” Connie Lin, FastCompany.com. Have we “tipped” already?

I’m Peter Dekom, and you have to wonder when one of these “events” becomes so violent that it actually becomes a trigger for a full-on civil war.