The danger of demagoguery

Raymond Jepson
2 min readFeb 23, 2022

I noticed something odd today. In the last 20 years, there have been two U.S. presidential assassination attempts by Americans. Both attempts were on Bill Clinton. Considering the plummeting approval of President Bush versus the near-constant affection of Bill Clinton, why is this?

To begin, I want to say, I’m glad no one is trying to kill the president. I don’t believe in violence towards other human beings and it would solve none of the problems he is responsible for overseeing (the war, the degradation of our environment, the infrastructure debt and neglect of the health care system).

As for the two attempts on Clinton, they were both conducted by insane people. The first was a gun man who decided to spray the White House with 29 bullets from Pennsylvania Avenue. He sited an alien conspiracy as his reason. The second attempt involved a man crashing a small plane into the lawn of the White House, just missing the unoccupied presidential bedroom. The assassin was suffering from depression.

However, there have been just as many mentally ill and depressed people in the US during the 12 Bush years as the 8 under Clinton. So why haven’t deranged citizens been driven to mad cap attempts to kill the president?

I believe it comes down the culture of demagoguery that has been nurtured by American conservatives versus the more nuanced liberal media. In fact, the gunman who shot at the White House was a fan of the conservative hate monger radio:

In October, a Baker listener Francisco Martin Duran fired nearly 30 bullets at the White House. Nearby, Duran’s abandoned pickup sported a bumper sticker: “Fire Butch Reno” — a favorite Baker nickname for Attorney General Janet Reno.

Meanwhile, the harshest treatment of Bush that liberals can think of, is impeachment. Consider the other statements that the gunman’s favourite radio host had made:

“Am I advocating the overthrow of this government?. . . .I’m advocating the cleansing.” Citing the power of the “masses in rebellion,” he asked: “Why are we sitting here?”

Later that day, a caller accused Baker of advocating “armed rebellion.” The talk host corrected her: “An armed revolution.”

I will not post more quotes as they are widely available other places, however these statements are not atypical. The idea that liberal and moderate politicians should be killed, or at least threatened, is widely accepted by the conservative media.

I don’t like the idea of censorship, but I think the FCC should move to limit this speech. If our government can block bad language and display of the human body, it should certainly have the power to limit violent threats against our representatives.

Crash at the White House (NY Times)

Shooting at the White House (Post)

Guns, Ammo and Talk Radio

Wikipedia: presidential assissanation attempts

Note: I wrote this in 2007. It seems as relevant as ever…

--

--

Raymond Jepson

I am a product designer responsible for the design of hundreds of products.