The Angry American: How Voter Rage Is Changing the Nation by Susan Tolchin

Author:Susan Tolchin [Tolchin, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780429965395
Google: Df_EDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 41386521
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

Miller’s challenge met mostly with silence, at least from Republicans. In the absence of much public censure, the level of hate speech continued to rise. Representative Robert Dornan, a conservative and highly vocal Republican member from California, criticized President Clinton on the floor of the House in late January 1995 for giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy as a Vietnam War draft dodger. Dornan, an air force pilot in the 1950s, was outraged by Clinton’s State of the Union message that included a tribute to Jack Lucas, a winner of the Medal of Honor. The House rose to the occasion and censured Dornan for his inappropriate language, ordering it stricken from the Congressional Record. Dornan was also barred from the privilege of speaking on the House floor for twenty-four hours. Dornan was defeated in the 1996 election by Loretta Sanchez, a Hispanic woman, by a vote of 47,964 to 46,980. Since the numbers were so close, Dornan protested the election, but the dispute was finally resolved in Sanchez’s favor.

Attacks on the president continued throughout his second term, one of the worst coming from Representative Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who publicly referred to Clinton as a “scumbag.” In his capacity as chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Burton told the Indianapolis Star-News that “If I could prove 10 percent of what I believe happened [with regard to the committee’s investigation of campaign finance violations], he’d be gone. This guy’s a scumbag. That’s why I’m after him.” Shortly afterward, the ranking Democrat on the committee, Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), denounced Burton for remarks that he considered “repugnant” and criticized his fitness for leadership. Any semblance of comity between the two parties on that committee has long since broken down.28

Other examples of hate speech persist. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) referred on the House floor to Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), an openly homosexual member of Congress, as “Barney fag.” A slip of the tongue, Armey averred; he merely “blended the two words (Frank and harangue, which I pronounce with a hard ‘g’) in a way that made it seem as if I was using a slur.”29 This Freudian slip, responded Frank, revealed Armey’s homophobia.

Homophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny—it has been a field day for prejudice of all kinds, smack dab in the center of mainstream, Main Street American politics, on the right side of the spectrum as well as the left:

Rap star Sister Souljah proposed a week dedicated to killing white people.

At Rutgers University, feminists carried the banner “Don’t F—With Us.”

Singer Michael Jackson’s much-awaited album HIStory featured the phrases “Jew me” and “kike me.”

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