Dana Loesch's Metaphors

Loesch has started a cute movement on Twitter called No Metaphors, ostensively mocking the idea that nonstop right-wing extremist rhetoric might play a role in anti-government violence. It features tweets like this:

Given Loesch's new fascination with metaphors that I'm sure she'll be pitching as she does her whine-to-the-media-about-how-the-tea-party-are-the-real-victims-here tour, I thought it might be worthwhile to go back to one of Loesch's most interesting metaphors.

In the week before the health care reform bill finally passed, Loesch's St. Louis tea party co-founder Bill Hennessy was openly writing about revolution:

Today, the House of Representatives voted 222-203 to dispense with yea and nay voting on the most important laws. That action effectively ends the contract between the United States and the People. “Screw you, America. We’re Congress. We’ll do whatever the hell we want. And you’ll gladly pay for it, you swine!”

But if Congress cut the ties to the contract WE wrote, aren’t we, the people, free from any obligations to the federal government? It would seem that we are citizens of our states and we owe no allegiance, legal or moral, to the government in Washington...Now, what do we do about it?

He then cites the Declaration of Independence, and specifically bolds the following:

it is their right,
it is their duty,
to throw off such Government,

Two more notable quotes from his post:

If Congress continues on its present course – to inflict socialized medicine on America by decree – the reaction from the people will be something that we have never seen before.

But if this bill passes, all bets are off. Every aspect of the government in Washington is fair game.

In a different post, Hennessy said the following:

It would seem that the American Experiment is over. It’s time to choose between freedom and tyranny, and no one will be spared the decision.

Here are some of Hennessy's tweets from that same week:



So then, on the day Congress was voting on the bill, the tea party holds a rally outside of Russ Carnahan's office. As a "metaphor," they had a picture of Russ Carnahan, which they beat with various objects:
And Dana? She was at the rally:

And her clever metaphor was to say, "I love the way a fire smells when it's burning tyranny" while her tea party friends set the photo of Carnahan on fire:


The following day, the tea party (minus Loesch, who nevertheless advertised the event) carried a coffin to Russ Carnahan's house. Don't worry, they said, after they were called out, it wasn't meant to be threatening. They only did it because they needed to have a prayer vigil for "all the babies who would be killed under Obamacare" and apparently their prayer at the office 20 minutes earlier wasn't strong enough.

So maybe while Anderson Cooper or whoever are letting Loesch cry about how unfair it is to suggest that the tea party uses violent and vitriolic rhetoric, they can ask her to explain what the point was of burning a photo of Carnahan and carrying a coffin to his lawn. Can Loesch really pretend that these actions are not poisoning the political atmosphere?

If you'd like to see Cooper ask this question, you can fill out this form or send him a message via Twitter.