It’s damning proof that the U.S. is now suffering a “major divide” that may be insurmountable, says talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh: A gunman brainwashed by leftist politicians and the mainstream media carried a hit list of six Republicans in his pocket before he sprayed bullets into a congressional baseball practice in Virginia, wounding five people on June 14.
But imagine if the gunman had been a crazed Republican brainwashed by GOP rhetoric and carrying a hit list filled with Democrat targets.
The fury from the left and the mainstream media would be earth-shattering, and the headlines would reflect their outrage, Limbaugh contends.
Instead, the mainstream media are virtually ignoring the leftist gunman with a GOP hit list and running wild with coverage of the anti-Muslim van driver who plowed his vehicle into a crowd of worshipers in London, killing one and injuring at least 10 more.
“Now, compare and contrast this: The media’s glee at reporting every detail about this London attack to their reluctance to talk about the terrorist who shot up Steve Scalise and the two Capitol Hill police and others,” Limbaugh said on his Monday show. “Have you seen any headlines in the Drive-By Media about how the perp, [gunman James T.] Hodgkinson, was carrying a list of six conservative Republicans in his pocket when he launched his terror attack?
“All of the people on his list are members of the congressional House Freedom Caucus,” Limbaugh continued. “These are the tea-party members. And the six other names that he wanted to target are on that list. They are all conservative tea-party members in the House of Representatives. The AP, Associated Press, did do a tiny story on it but their article omits any mention that the list was of Republicans, let alone conservatives.”
The horrific attack was clearly a pre-planned political assassination rather than a random act of rage, “multiple sources” told the Daily Caller. The names on the hit list reportedly included Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala.; Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.; and Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz. It’s not known how many other names were on Hodgkinson’s list. Brooks and Duncan were at the practice.
Hodgkinson, 66, was a supporter and campaign volunteer of Bernie Sanders. His social media pages were filled with pro-Sanders posts and anti-Republican rhetoric. Hodgkinson was a major fan of leftist pundits and media figures such as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher, Bill Moyers and Michael Moore and leftist publications like the Huffington Post. While he fanatically backed Sanders, Hodgkinson railed against President Trump, calling him a “traitor” who “has destroyed our democracy.” He wrote, “It’s time to destroy Trump & Co.”
Limbaugh noted that Hodgkinson was a “copycat” indoctrinated by Sanders and the leftist mainstream media. The rhetoric and ideas he was spouting all over social media and in letters to the editor were not his own:
There are many people who have sprung up in an attempt to be bipartisan and say, “Bernie Sanders is not responsible for this. Don’t go there. We can’t say that Bernie Sanders is responsible. Bernie Sanders didn’t pull the trigger.” I understand that. But, folks, my point with this is not that Bernie Sanders is responsible in the sense that he pulled the trigger.
But if you read what this guy has posted on Facebook, if you read his letters to the editor, Hodgkinson, if you listen to sound bites, this guy’s rhetoric, the things that he says are amazingly parallel to what Bernie Sanders has said during his campaign and since. My point is that this guy, Hodgkinson and probably countless others, they are not creating this rhetoric themselves. They’re copycats. They’re copying what they’re hearing and seeing in the media and from their elected candidates.
So the argument is out, “We can’t say that the words of others inspire action. We don’t want to go there.” Of course not, ’cause that would then make Hollywood really in a precarious circumstance. But my point is that we pull up short of the guy pulling the trigger. It can’t be denied that Democrat rhetoric is, in fact, creating mentally unstable people out there on their side. These are true believers, and they’re subject to it; they soak it up. They seek it out wherever they can find it. When they end up speaking publicly, they regurgitate whatever they’ve heard from their favorite comedians or their favorite politicians or their favorite media pundits.
It’s amazing how close it is. It’s almost like plagiarism. So it’s undeniable that there is impact. When the effort to enrage people and make them upset — by the way, I said last week, the New York Times raked me over the coals in the Sunday magazine for this. But you can find tweets from Democrats, elected Democrats, who reference exactly the kind of thing that Hodgkinson did. You can find elected Democrats who have tweeted out, “Republicans should be lined up and shot.” No less than Tim Kaine has said something like that. …
If that happens on the right, if somebody on the right had ever said somebody needs to be stood up and shot, can you imagine what the left would do with this? Can you imagine this? If somebody from some conservative organization were caught running around town with a list of names after having shot a Democrat member of Congress, had a list of names of other Democrats, can you imagine?
The calls for civility quickly dissipated after the shooting as Democrats began pointing fingers at Republicans. On Monday, MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid went so far as to point a finger at Rep. Steve Scalise, who is recovering in a hospital from a serious gunshot wound. Reid appeared to suggest Scalise had gotten what he deserved for holding political beliefs she found offensive.
Reid blasted Scalise for co-sponsoring a constitutional amendment defining marriage as an institution between a man and a woman, for voting for the GOP House health bill and for his vote to repeal a ban on semiautomatic weapons. She tweeted: “Rep. #Scalise was shot by a white man with a violent background, and saved by a black lesbian police officer, and yet… #AMJoy.”
In yet another case of Republicans catching blame for the shooting attack, Limbaugh pointed to the case of PBS panelist Mark Shields saying the shooting was a result of Newt Gingrich’s 1990s rhetoric.
“So the bottom line, it is clear that we have a divide, a major divide in America that does not seem surmountable,” Limbaugh lamented. “It does not seem reparable. It does not seem like it is possible or even likely to find any common ground, when many Americans think that their number one enemy is the other political party, which is a fact on the left. Scary times.”
Limbaugh said all the left’s talk of investigating and impeaching President Trump is just more evidence of the possibly insurmountable divide.
“It’s all part of that mix,” he said. “I understand the administration is afraid to use the word. They don’t go to out and start talking impeachment, even blowing it away and nuking it, defending it, because then you get the word out there. But I don’t think they need to be afraid of it. There’s nothing that Trump has done or even dreamed of doing that’s impeachable. All of this is manufactured. And it needs to be beaten back. But the Republicans so far seem to be standing by idly.”
