We’ve seen it so many times. A public figure lazily reaches back into history, grabs a tragic event (or a series of tragic events) and uses it to demagogue an unrelated, current controversy.
As we’ve said before on this blog, it’s a cheap strategy to ignite the passions and prejudices of the base, deflect criticism, change the subject and make cheap political points. But worst of all it utterly trivializes and demeans the victims of the historical event that is referenced.
Just recently, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus compared President Barack Obama with the Italian cruise ship captain who allegedly abandoned his sinking ship. And 2008 Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin sharply criticized the Republican Party “establishment” for using what she called a “Stalin-esque rewriting of history.”
The latest example of this buffoonery comes from GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
Just last night during a town hall in Plano, Texas, the former Pennsylvania senator attacked the government’s requirement that faith-based employers to provide contraceptive services for women, saying it would infringe on religious freedom. That, Santorum said, could lead people of faith to the guillotine:
“When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution,” said Santorum. “What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.” Earlier in the day at a town hall in McKinney, Texas, Santorum lashed out at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for finding Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, unconstitutional. “The intolerance of the left, the intolerance of the secular ideology, it is a religion unto itself, just like we saw from the days of — of the atheists in the Soviet Union,” Santorum said. “It is completely intolerant of dissent.” C’mon Rick, this is the best you can do? Are your stands on these issues so weak that you have to make these desperate grabs into history, drag the victims of these horrible events out again so you can whip up fear, get your base excited and get some attention?
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