NH Republicans blame Dems for shooting: 'The justification of violence in pursuit of social justice’
While most Americans reacted to the shooting that wounded a congressman and four others with shock and horror and bipartisan calls for a more civil political discourse, some Granite State lawmakers and former officials took to social media to blame Democrats and issue dark warnings of retaliation.
Soon after the Alexandria shooting, former state Rep. Daniel Tamburello (R-Londonderry) posted a list of 21 deadly attacks – including mass shootings at the Virginia Tech campus, an Aurora Colorado movie theater and the Sandy Hook elementary school – all of which he blamed on Democrats. “A partial list….” he claimed.
In a separate message posted online by former Rep. Susan DeLemus (R-Rochester), Tamburello noted the Alexandria shooter was a Bernie Sanders supporter.
“These people (the shooter, ‘antifa’, the modern leftists, etc., et al) are not (clinically) insane. They are the result of frenzied media spewing lies, hatred and propaganda, and an education system dominated by Marxists for 60 years,” Tamburello wrote. “This is part of what happens when people are made to believe in the justification of violence in pursuit of ‘social justice’.”
Along those same lines, Rep. Jordan Ulery (R-Hudson) forwarded a tweet that declared, “Dems have committed all the assassinations/attempted assassinations in the US. It is now a political strategy. Dem Party of Hate,” and Rep. Al Baldasaro (R-Londonderry) retweeted a message from a Sean Spicer parody account that asked, “Wonder if we’ll hear anything about Democrats’ dangerous rhetoric contributing to Rep Scalise’s shooting. Magic 8 ball: Highly doubtful”.
Former House Speaker Bill O’Brien (R-Mont Vernon) weighed in by reaching back to a 2008 quote from “Barack Hussein Obama” in which the president explained to donors that he was prepared for an “ugly” general election campaign. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama had told the crowd, paraphrasing a quote from the movie, The Untouchables.
“It doesn’t look like they are waiting for us to bring a knife,” O’Brien wrote.
Rep. Glen Dickey (R-New Boston) responded to O’Brien’s message with a dark warning. “The Left should be careful. It’s all too easy for things to get out of control,” he wrote. Former Rep. Leon Rideout (R-Lancaster) echoed that warning. “The question is how long the right will tolerate the violence before responding and then where will it end ???” he tweeted
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And then there were the comments from two lawmakers in response to a CNN photograph of House Democrats praying for their colleagues after learning of the shooting. “Rather than prayers maybe they could do Republicans and country a favor and tone down their unfounded 24hour anti-Trump anti-R hysteria,” tweeted Rep. Bart Fromuth (R-Bedford). “Who exactly r they praying to?” asked Rep. Lisa Freeman (R-Manchester). “Allah?”
