Oh, so NOW tone matters.

Now that white supremacist Steve Scalise, the Majority Whip in the House of Representatives, has been shot by a liberal, Republicans think that our politics has gotten too mean.

“It’s now incumbent upon the governing class in Washington to do their best to, if not end the gridlock, then at least end the hellacious, completely critical rhetoric that has just done nothing but divide our nation over the last election cycle,” said [Gillian] Turner, a Fox News contributor and former White House National Security Council member under Presidents Bush and Obama.

Did you hear this from Republicans before a Republican Congressman was shot?  No you did not.  A small sample of what you did hear:

  • Donald Trump encouraged rally attendees to “knock the hell out of” protesters, and promised to pay their legal fees if they did.
  • Ted Nugent said at a concert in 2007, “I told [Obama] to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.”  He had dinner with the President at the White House in April.
  • A Republican member of Congress says it’s not appropriate to physically assault a journalist, unless the journalist deserved it.
  • The President of the United States referred to journalists as “enemies of the people“, a phrase used by Stalin among other tyrants.
  • A Republican state legislator called on those who take down Confederate monuments to be lynched.
  • Jeff Sessions, now Attorney General, described undocumented immigrants as “filth.”

To be fair, Ted Nugent at least claims that he’s going to tone it down from now on.  I’ll believe that when I see it.  Call me cynical, but I think their newfound distaste for hatefulness and violence are going to apply only to Democrats, not to fellow Republicans.  If I’m wrong, call me out in the comments on this blog.

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