Walberg supporters overheard praising idea of Obama assassination

In any contest, there’s a winner and loser. So, needless to say, not everyone was pleased by Barack Obama’s victory last Tuesday night over John McCain. But how displeased some people were, even in heat of the moment of defeat, is alarming and noteworthy.

Two campaign volunteers for Republican Rep. Tim Walberg (who eventually lost his seat to Democrat Mark Schauer early Wednesday morning) were overheard by a Battle Creek Enquirer reporter in Jackson, Mich., on Election Day after the results came in, wishing out loud for the assassination of Obama.

From The Battle Creek Enquirer:

Among staunch Republicans at Tuesday night’s post-election party in Jackson for U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, two Hillsdale College students — Walberg volunteers — sat beside a journalist as Obama’s image appeared on a giant-screen TV set.

“Bang-bang,” said Kayla Hoyt of Traverse City.

“Wouldn’t that be great?” said her friend, Emily Birchmeier. Then, noticing the journalist, Birchmeier said, “Shhh. We shouldn’t … don’t talk.”

“Why not?” said Hoyt.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Birchmeier responded.

Hoyt replied, “We should be able to say what we want. … But with his daughters there, that would be bad.”

Hoyt, a sophomore at Hillsdale, retreated a bit from her “bang-bang” comment when confronted about it by a reporter.

“It’s more the fact that it could happen — just because America — like, there’s so many racist people out there that having a black president, it could happen,” Hoyt said.

It seems that the violent subtext to conservative messaging during the campaign and Fox News pundits carrying these talking points unfiltered to millions of viewers has created a situation where perhaps millions of Americans feel comfortable and natural wishing the president-elect harm, ostensibly because they think he’s an enemy of the country.

During the McCain-Palin campaign rallies, reports of supporters shouting out epithets like “kill him” at the mention of Sen. Barack Obama’s name became near-daily occurrences in their campaign’s final days.

From Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood’s interview with author Jeffrey Feldman just last month, Feldman discusses “violent rhetoric” and its social effects:

Feldman argues that comments like Palin’s statement that Obama “pals around with terrorists” are a form of violent rhetoric. “But first,” he says, “it’s necessary to specify that ‘violent rhetoric’ is not just language that directly incites a person to commit an act of violence (e.g., ‘Kill him now!’), but also rhetoric that frames political issues in terms of violent consequences (e.g., ‘liberals were responsible for 9/11′).

“So,” continues Feldman, “when Palin says that Obama is ‘palling around with terrorists,’ she is unfolding a much larger argument about Democrats being tied to terrorists, such that a vote for Obama will have all the violent consequences that terrorism brings as a public threat. As a result of repeating that phrase, the crowds called for Obama to be dealt with like a terrorist (e.g., death penalty).”

There are far too many problems for our nation to solve. Yet, thanks to divisive rhetoric, we remain a country divided more than we would be otherwise. Those who participated in that rhetoric, or endorsed through their silence, need to step up and own the damage they’ve inflicted and call for its undoing.

Then, perhaps, we can get down to business.