destroy Tea Party and silence criticism of government
Chris McGreal in Tucson
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 January 2011 19.30 GMT
A nine-year-old girl lies in the morgue. A member of Congress faces a
lifetime of struggle to recover from a bullet in the brain. A city is
bracing itself for a string of funerals as it tries to fathom the
carnage.
But Trent Humphries says there is another innocent victim left by
Jared Lee Loughner's killing of six people and wounding of 14 others
in his assassination attempt against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
It is his Tea Party movement and, more particularly, his family. The
killings, he says, are evolving into a conspiracy to destroy his
organisation and silence criticism of the government.
Humphries is the co-founder of Tucson's Tea Party, a movement besieged
by accusations that its use of the rhetoric of armed resistance
against political opponents played a role in the shootings.
The local sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, quickly pointed the finger at the
growing vitriol, hate and anger directed against the government on
talk radio and by Tea Party supporters in Arizona, where Democrats and
liberals from President Obama to Giffords are portrayed as enemies of
the people, un-American or Nazis.
Giffords herself warned that the Tea Party favourite, Sarah Palin, was
"firing people up" with a campaign poster that put the Democratic
party congresswoman in the crosshairs of a rifle.
Humphries is having none of it. "A lot have taken as gospel that the
sheriff says that this was caused by talk radio, by Tea Party
extremists, that that must be the case. I think it's done a lot of
damage. It's given people the idea that somebody like my wife and I
caused this murder. There's no evidence. And there's no evidence Sarah
Palin caused this murder," he said. "The Democrats are using this
opportunity to bludgeon their opponents. People don't want to hear
that it was just some stupid, evil act that had no bearing in
rationality. They want it to make sense."
There's no doubt that some people are blaming Humphries directly. He
accuses the sheriff of prompting a string of accusatory emails. One
said: "You people are responsible for the murder of a child, a judge
and seven other innocents today. May you rot in hell."
Another accuser wrote: "It's time to change your message of hate. If
not, get out of politics because the American people are not going to
take it any longer. We want our country back."
Humphries, who runs a computer company and once ran for a seat in the
state legislature but lost, is baffled. He says he too is grieving
after one of his neighbours, Dorwan Stoddard, was killed shielding his
wife from Loughner's bullets. She was wounded. But from the vigils
outside the Tucson hospital where Giffords is being treated to the
corridors of Congress, people are pointing the finger at the Tea
Party. In his own city, that attention has focused on Humphries, whose
organisation threw its support behind Giffords's opponent in
November's election, Jesse Kelly.
Kelly, a former marine who served in Iraq, published a controversial
campaign advert which included the lines: "Get on Target for Victory
in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully
automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." Asked if that wasn't a kind of
incitement, Humphries moves to his computer and finds a picture of
Giffords brandishing an AK-47 several years ago.
"Guns are a big thing in Arizona. It's a culture. Giffords owns guns,"
he said. "You have President Obama telling a rally that we punish our
enemies. You have him saying things like: if they bring a knife, we
bring a gun. This is not something limited to the Tea Party movement."
Pressed on whether he was concerned when he heard Giffords's warning
about Palin's use of gunsights and calls for supporters not to retreat
but "reload" in fighting Democrats, Humphries did not retreat. "It's
political gamesmanship. The real case is that she [Giffords] had no
security whatsoever at this event. So if she lived under a constant
fear of being targeted, if she lived under this constant fear of this
rhetoric and hatred that was seething, why would she attend an event
in full view of the public with no security whatsoever?" he said. "For
all the stuff they accuse her [Palin] of, that gun poster has not done
a tenth of the damage to the political discourse as what we're hearing
right now. There are people who are genuinely confused, scared, and I
understand it. But there are also people who are deliberately
manipulating this event and tragedy for political ends."
Whether the accusations against the Tea Party are fair or not,
Humphries acknowledges that the movement will feel the political
fallout. "Do I think there's going to be blowback and people who are
upset? Yes, in large part due to what the sheriff said. That's the
tragedy for my family and what we're trying to do politically," he
said. "There's a city election coming up next year and I'm sure
this'll be used as a club and a hammer at that point to say: well,
you're all just gun-crazy nuts and we can't listen to a word you say,
you killed Gabby Giffords."
Humphries says also that one consequence is likely to be fewer guns in
politics. "I'm pretty sure that for a little while yet you won't be
seeing any politician holding an AK-47 or an M16. I'm pretty sure
that's going to go away, and the last place that would go away is
Arizona," he said.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011
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