Within hours of word getting out that the triggerman behind Wednesday morning’s horrific shooting in Alexandria, Virginia was a Bernie Sanders supporter, right-wingers started pointing fingers. Newt Gingrich tried to blame potty-mouthed Democrats, while Donald Trump, Jr. tried to blame a staging of “Julius Caesar” starring a title character that looked a lot like his dad.
However, it’s not likely that Gingrich, Donald, Jr., or any other conservative would be saying a word if they knew about the bile that was flying literally moments after the shooting started in Alexandria. Two prominent religious right radio hosts actually called for California Governor Jerry Brown to be publicly lynched.
There are a lot of loathsome characters on the religious right. But coach-turned-minister Dave Daubenmire is one of the most loathsome of all. He believes that only evangelical Christians should be eligible for the Supreme Court–an outgrowth of his view that non-Christians have no business sitting in judgment of Christians. Before then, he claimed that Hillary Clinton should have been rejected out of hand because she’s a woman, and blamed “Jewish organizations” for eroding American culture.
But those comments sound like models of sanity compared to what he did on the Wednesday edition of his daily “Pass The Salt” podcast. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Daubenmire’s special guest was fellow religious right podcaster Sheila Zilinsky, hostess of “Weekend Vigilante.” She bills herself as “Alex Jones in a skirt,” and she isn’t kidding. Just like the InfoWars boss, she rails against “the unseen hand of evil orchestrating world events.” For instance, she believes Disney is an agent of “Illuminati mind control.”
But Zilinsky revealed a lot more about what makes her tick 32 minutes into Daubenmire’s show. She is a fire-eating climate-change denier; she has written a book, “Green Gospel,” which claims the environmental movement is a stalking horse for a massive scheme to depopulate the planet. She told Daubenmire that she was doing “a happy dance” when Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement.
However, she hit the ceiling when she found out that Brown and other state and local leaders were willing to step up and advance the agreement’s objectives on their own–including Brown.
“And then you got these Logan Act treasonous hucksters–Jerry Brown from California, ‘Oh, I’m gonna sign the Paris.’ I mean, this guy should be hanging from a rope from the town square.”
This would be outrageous, horrifying, and unacceptable at any time. But as we now know, this was happening just as emergency workers were on their way to the park in Alexandria.
Now how did Daubenmire react? Did he cut in? Did he tell Zilinsky that the appearance was over? Nope. He said, “Amen.”
So there you have it. Two prominent Christianists have publicly called for Brown to be publicly hanged. It says a lot about Daubenmire’s character that this video was still available when Right Wing Watch flagged it just after 1 p. m. Eastern. And it’s even more telling that it is still available as I write this on Wednesday night.
We need not imagine what would have happened if Stephanie Miller, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, or Rachel Maddow had called for Greg Abbott to be lynched after he signed Texas’ horribly draconian abortion restrictions into law. They would have been canceled before their next break, and deservedly so. This sort of violent rhetoric has no place in our discourse, from either side of the aisle. Period, full stop.
Daubenmire has really outdone himself this time. His endorsement of a call for an elected official to be lynched is bad enough. The fact that he still has it up now, after today’s horror in Alexandria, is beyond comprehension. Let him have it on Facebook and on Twitter. Tell Zilinsky what you think of her despicable call for violence on Facebook and on Twitter. And while you’re at it, report today’s podcast to YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, Overcast, and Periscope. If letting a guest publicly call for violence isn’t a violation of their terms of service, nothing is.
It cannot be repeated enough–this sort of talk has no place in our discourse, whether it comes from a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative. Period.
(featured image courtesy Daubenmire’s Facebook)
