One could not avoid the news that someone was arrested for threatening Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A friend complained, this is getting to be serious; there are real extremists moving into the opposition to Obama.
Well, there are always extremists, and publicity--especially heated public arguments--probably will set them off. So does a full moon.
When George W. Bush was president the vitriol was noxious. Of course, it came from the left, mostly, so commentators--who also come from the left, mostly--thought it merely a sign of how GWB had divided the country. Now vitriolic opposition in manifesting itself under Mr. Obama, only now it's coming from the right (and from independents). So the commentators--who still come from the left, mostly--think that incidents of bad taste, not to mention physical threats, are signs not of mere division, but of growing right wing extremism.
When the right wing extremists, the folks who threaten violence or do it, get organized and infiltrate the Republican Party, let me know. I don't even like extreme talk. In my political youth I denounced the radicals who called Eisenhower a communist and played dirty tricks at party conventions. But, frankly, they were small time bores, for the most part, and most true extremists never were part of the GOP. The cross-burners and bigoted sheriffs of the day were in the Southern Democratic Party, remember. (If you don't remember, you need to read a true history of the 50s and 60s.)
As I say, anyone in political life, especially in organized political life, who conducts or threatens violence has to be disavowed, at the least. It also behooves all of us, on all sides of various issues, to avoid provocations. On the other hand, there are disturbed people out there who are going to make trouble, and before trying to assign them to the camp of one's opponents, it might be a good idea to investigate the facts. Otherwise, one is engaging in a kind of projection--describing one's opponents as doing something one almost wishes they would do so as to make it easier to discredit them.
Take a look at the case of the man arrested for threatening Speaker Pelosi. She definitely deserves protection from such people. But such people deserve a different kind of help.
Pelosi has became to become one of the particular the majority of liberal politicians inside the particular region. It's laborious for myself to believe exactly how folk can easily reelect her in their own suitable thoughts.