Politics in any country is a rough and tumble business. In the ideal politics is a process of persuasion where individuals called political leaders have the duty to inform the population, to educate the population with the facts in an effort to persuade people to form a common opinion on a topic. The emergence of tough and complex issues like energy and environmental policies aimed at dealing with the adverse affects of climate change, and health reform challenge politicians and the population to engage politics in the ideal sense or to engage in bully mob rule. The Republican Party in the United States has chosen to engage the tough issues of the day with bully mob rule.
In the presidential election year of 2000 the Republican Party chose to use bully mob rule to intimidate people to oppose efforts carefully recount votes to determine who won the state of Florida. Organized “hooligans” threatened, shouted, and otherwise forced their views to disrupt the recount process. Fear seems to drive the Republican party and its leaders to act hysterically and to threaten and intimidate voters. Reminiscent of fascist and Bolshevik tactics in the 1920s and 1930s, the Republican party seems to have lost its way … giving up on the political process of persuasion.
With the developing debate about health reform in the US, Insurance company and pharmaceutical company supported Republican party activists began in August during the Congressional recess to use town hall meetings with congressmen as venues to engage in “hooliganism,” bully mob intimidation of public officials and ordinary citizens. This is a corruption of the political system. This is not politics. This is not a policy debate. This is a form of political violence that corrupts democracy.
Republican organized bully mobs in town hall meetings is not politics. This is a betrayal of the political process that denies American citizens the benefits of their own governing process. Republican destructive political behavior must be rejected by the public. If it isn’t then hooliganism will become increasingly used to force political change favorable to a few corporate interests or other narrow interests upending democracy in the United States.
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