MADDOW: Do you think that calling the president a Nazi, calling the president Hitler, is an implicit call for politically-motivated violence?
SCHAEFFER: Yes I do. In fact, this rings a big bell with me, because my dad, who was a right-wing evangelical leader, wrote a book called A Christian Manifesto — it sold over a million copies. And in that book he compared anyone who was pro-abortion to the Nazi Germans, and he said that using violence or force to overthrow Nazi Germany would have been appropriate for Christians, including the assassination of Hitler. He compared the Supreme Court’s actions on abortion to that. And that has been a note that has been following the right wing movement that my father and I helped start in an evangelical context all the way.
So what’s really being said here is two messages. There is the message to the predominantly white, middle-aged crowds of people screaming at these meetings, trying to shut them down, but there’s also a coded message to what I would call the loony tunes — the fruit loops on the side. It’s really like playing Russian Roulette — you put a cartridge in the chamber, you spin, and once in awhile it goes off.
And we saw that happen with Dr. Tiller, we’ve seen it happen numerous times with the violence against political leaders, whether it’s Martin Luther King or whoever it might be. We have a history of being a well-armed, violent country. And so really, I think that these calls are incredibly irresponsible.
The good news is that it shows a desperation. The far right knows they have lost, they’ve lost the hearts and minds of most American people, for instance, who want health care. But they also know that they have a large group of people who are not well-informed, who listen to only their own sources, who buy the lies — for instance, all this nonsense about euthanasia being mandatory, and all the rest of it. And these people can be energized to go out and do really dreadful things.
And we’ve seen it in front of abortion clinics, I’m afraid we’re going to see it with some of our political leaders. And the Glenn Becks of this world literally are responsible for unleashing what I regard as an anti-democratic, anti-American movement in this country. It is trying to shut down legitimate debate, and replace it with straight-out intimidation.
The talk has become very dangerous, and the good people on the right need to step forward, listen to conscience and tone it down.
Persuasiveness comes not necessarily from who talks the loudest, but who talks smartest.
