Arizona shooting: how will it change American politics?

Published : 10 Jan 2011, 04:10 PM
Updated : 10 Jan 2011, 04:10 PM

In a supermarket parking lot, during a political meet and greet with the people of Southern Arizona, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot through the head at close range. The gunman continued firing into the crowd, killing Arizona's Chief Federal judge who had just happened to come by to say hello to Ms. Giffords on his way back from his daily routine of attending Roman Catholic Mass, heading home to do what he did every Saturday — scrub the floors.

Among the six dead was a nine-year-old girl.

As far as I can determine, this is the first time in American history that a female political figure has been the target of an assassination attempt. I do not say this glibly, certainly good people and an innocent child were murdered by a deranged killer, but the fact that this killer targeted a woman, is a bellwether of how American perceptions of women in power have changed since the 1970s.

Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was an unlikely target. Any average citizen conducting due diligence before the election would have understood that while Congresswoman Giffords did support the Obama health care bill, in many ways her positions on key issues were in complete agreement with those of the Tea Party that nearly defeated her. She was not a supporter of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. She favoured fiscal restraint, and was a proponent of protecting the constitutional right of all Americans to bear arms. While she may have been a Rhodes scholar who attended university in Mexico, this Congresswoman from a border district supported stronger immigration control along the Mexican frontier.

What this means is that the Tea Party may not have done their due diligence when they decided to oppose her. As she recovers, and the Americans learn more about her politics, many will begin to wonder why the Tea Party mounted a campaign against her in the first place. Perhaps many of those who are sympathetic to the fiscal conservatism advocated by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party candidates, might question why a Democrat sympathetic to so many of the issues supported by the Tea Party movement would have been so adamantly vilified by that movement as Giffords was.

Arizona has been rent in two politically, and in the heat of the rhetoric, the lunatic fringe found reason to react. The Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupik who knew two of the victims personally, and who eulogised federal judge John Roll as "one of the finest human beings I have ever met" blamed "vitriolic rhetoric" for inspiring the assassination attempt, and lamented the demise of a nicer, gentler time in America. He blamed radio and television pundits for their role in turning up the heat.

In the days to come, our airwaves will be saturated by the constant commentaries of radio personalities exonerating themselves from any role in this tragedy. Personally, I agree with these radio personalities. As divisive and acrimonious as ratings-grabbing vultures have made the political dialogue in this country, one need only read a small part of the assassin's manifesto to understand that the man who pulled the trigger was a lunatic. What is extremely disconcerting, however, is the fact that this lunatic may not have acted alone, and perhaps radio was able to unify a couple of madmen to serve a common cause.

All the issues of American politics meet at the nexus of this failed attempt on a woman's life — the xenophobic state of Arizona, the young female representative of a state on the rise, gaining representation as Eastern states lose some of their political clout, the influence of the Tea Party, the repeal of Obamacare, and the unemployment situation and its possible effects on the mental health of the assassin.

The reaction of the County Sheriff was the most spontaneous and heartfelt moment of coverage thus far. Here was a man who was clearly mourning the death of the Judge, who seemed to be good friend. Meanwhile, in Washington, Congress agreed to postpone the vote on repealing Obama's healthcare measures. When it comes to healthcare, this was the first bipartisan decision ever made on the issue. This was the silver lining behind this very dark cloud.

Unfortunately, President Obama's own reaction was cold, deadpan and unemotional. Even when he spoke of his friend, the President's voice seemed to lack any passion or empathy. It was disconcerting, almost painful to watch, considering that President Obama must have strong feelings—somewhere—when it came to this incident.

This has been the major problem with Mr. Obama. Like his basking in the warm Hawaiian Christmas sunshine while Mainland America was shivering and shovelling snow, the President seems distant from anything the rest of us may be feeling.

On the other hand, President Obama's opponent in the presidential election of 2008, John McCain, ostensibly a political foe of Ms. Giffords', could barely contain his feelings. "I am horrified by the violent attack by wicked person… I beg our loving Creator to spare the lives of those who are still alive, heal them in body and spirit and return them to their loved ones. Whoever did this, whatever the reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country, and the human race." McCain went on to promise retribution for the crime.

Politically, if one can be so crass as to speak of such things so close to the event, both the Tea Party and the President showed their weaknesses as the story unfolded. It seems that the Tea Party has been exposed intellectually clueless, and the President has shown himself to be emotionally clueless.

But we as Americans can take some great solace from those who stepped up. We live in an age where some people can be shot through the head and survive because of the advances in emergency medical service. There are we lucky. Many of our politicians will put their differences aside and rally around political enemies when tragedy strikes. There again, are we lucky.

This horror also highlights the best of our own political system, which allows individuals, like Ms. Giffords, to vote her conscience even when it opposes the will of her party. Our system is individualistic. The American public have a low tolerance for any sort of partisanship, and these recent events might just have made lockstep party politics even more unpopular. The fact that the gunman had shot a Democratic Congresswoman and killed a Judge appointed by Republican George Bush makes the tragedy itself bipartisan.

Ms. Giffords is a proponent of the constitutional right of the people to bear arms. If after having been shot, she holds her position, it shows the American people, and the world at large, that the integrity of our Constitution is more important than the safety of any one individual. This is a lesson that we have often forgotten since September 11, 2001.

Ms. Giffords is young, born in 1970, she is a woman, and she's Jewish. It is inconceivable that any woman who fell into those three demographics could ever have been elected to represent Arizona in 1970. Her political ascent speaks to the strides we have made in civil rights and the shifting attitudes of the American people.

Oddly, there is one detail that makes this story uniquely American. I may have a unique perspective here that any American who hasn't lived abroad cannot appreciate. I love what it says about the American people that this Chief Federal District Judge was the kind of man who scrubbed his own floors every Saturday, and that a great man would do such a chore seems perfectly natural to anyone born and raised here. In Argentina at least, such a thing — a man, and a Judge who scrubbed his own floor — would be unthinkable. In most countries, such work would be considered "beneath" a man of such stature. Not so in the US. It's part of our national character that the best of us are never "beneath" good, hard, honest labour.  It does make me proud.

* * *

The article I wrote yesterday must be amended to include a new twist, one that just came to light this morning, as I read the papers. The nine-year-old girl also fits into this strange nexus of political events that led up to the shooting.

It turns out that this was an extraordinary nine-year-old girl, already active in politics, having been elected to her student government, and fascinated with the whole political process. She was at the rally to meet the Congresswoman and ask her some questions. This girl was the only girl in her baseball team, and had a real passion for the game. But as interesting as all of these facts are, the one that makes the truth of this tragedy stranger than fiction, was the fact that this girl, Christina Green, was born on the most infamous and politically defining day of our recent history: September 11, 2001. One could only speculate on how that birthday helped shape her political ambitions at such a tender age. My heart breaks for the family. I hope that the shared outrage convinces those who hide behind walls of rhetoric and intransigence Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal, to put their differences aside for the good of this nation, the way we all did the day Christina was born. Let this be her legacy.

* * *

Here in America, we are all praying for the recovery of all of those victims of the shooting, for the families of those who perished, especially those who lost a beloved child. This event, as tragic as it is, and as far from Washington DC as it is, may change the course of American politics. It may actually go a long way to tone down the partisan rhetoric, especially if the majority of the American people agree with Sheriff Dupik and begin to turn off their radios and televisions, and stop buying products which sponsor those "shock jockeys" who dominate our airwaves and are the enemies of civility and intelligent discourse. Let us hope that the one good thing that comes out of this tragedy is that, at least for a little while, we are united…

…even if it is only in hope and in prayer.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", is scheduled to be released by Findhorn Press in May of 2011.