Poor granny! In 2012, Dems portrayed Paul Ryan pushing her over a cliff.
The Dems have now hauled granny back up, but only for purposes of having her dragged out of her apartment by ICE agents enforcing President Trump’s new deportation guidelines.
Interviewed by Chris Cuomo on CNN this morning, Dem Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island twice invoked the image, once speaking of “grandma” worrying “that somebody’s going to come up the stairs and pull her out of her apartment.” Later, Whitehouse fretted that the relationship of law enforcement with communities could be harmed because “somebody’s granny got dragged out of her apartment.”
Whitehouse has a history of scaremongering.
As Professor Jacobson noted back in 2011, Whitehouse, in a speech on the Senate floor, invoked the Nazi Kristallnacht and Southern lynchings to criticize opponents of President Obama’s health care plan.
History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrels have rolled through taunting crowds. Broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner having secret lists. Those malignant movements rightly earned what Lord Acton called “the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict upon wrong.” …And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist.
Here’s a clip from that speech, in which Whitehouse describes President Obama’s opponents as “birthers, fanatics, people running around in right-wing militias and Aryan support groups.”
Note: kudos to Cuomo for repeatedly making the case for those who support the deportation guidelines. For example, when Whitehouse first invoked granny being pulled out of her apartment, Cuomo said, “just to be clear, for the audience, there are a lot of people who are worried about grandma, and all of her nephews and nieces and grandkids who may be here committing crimes. That’s why they voted the way they did in the election.”
Note segundo: instead of imaginary grannies, how about a photo of a real person, Elián González, being dragged from his home and expelled to a Communist dictatorship, by order of President Bill Clinton and AG Janet Reno.
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: I think they’re going to narrow and clarify who they’re really targeting so that grandma doesn’t worry that somebody’s going to come up the stairs and pull her out of her apartment.. . .CHRIS CUOMO: Just to be clear for the audience, there are a lot of people who are worried about grandma, and all of her nephews and nieces and grandkids who may be here committing crimes. That’s why they voted the way they did in the election. You have a president who promised to do this, and now he’s delivering.WHITEHOUSE: Yes, but it’s going to run up against all sorts of other things, like for instance the law-enforcement desire to have law enforcement priorities met. An attorney general or a chief of police who is running a significant gang investigation in a community does not want his relationship with that community, and his witness relationships disrupted because somebody’s granny got dragged out of her apartment.
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