Ed Schultz: Republicans are Practicing Intellectual Political Terrorism

Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:08 pm

On his MSNBC show tonight Ed Schultz accused the Republican Party of practicing intellectual political terrorism on all Americans in this debate on healthcare reform. Schultz said death panels were an “intellectual car bomb driven into the market place of ideas.” Check out the video.

Here is the video:

Schultz said, “Well it looks like the White House is finally starting to get it. The Republicans are not interested in an honest debate. I’ve said it all along. You know this death panel thing, you know what that was? That was an intellectual car bomb driven in to the market place of ideas. It wasn’t about debate. The Republican Party is practicing intellectual political terrorism on all Americans.”

He continued, “They are only interested in destruction. They want to destroy Obama and his agenda. They want to kill any intelligent reasoned debate on this issue. You know, grandma’s gonna die, death panels, the president’s a fascist, socialist, Nazi. He’s just like Hitler…The Republicans are raising the political terror threat right through the roof. They are acting like a mob mentality. It’s all about fear. It’s all about lies. It’s all about conjecture, and speculation. It certainly isn’t about the truth.”

I am really uncomfortable with Schultz’s rhetoric. You know, Ed people are free to disagree in America, without being labeled terrorists. The Bush administration used to label disagreement terrorism, and I don’t want to follow in those footsteps. However, he does have a valid point about the GOP strategy here. Republicans aren’t interested in a bi-partisan bill. It is impossible to forge a compromise when the other side only wants to say no.

The GOP strategy is to destroy healthcare reform by spreading lies and fear. It can be argued that the proper term for this is the politics of fear, not terrorism. Democrats would be best served to go it alone on healthcare. It will work. People will like it, and the Republicans will pay the price at the polls, with the broader electorate, but labeling people terrorists is not something any Democrat should be doing.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association