Paul Ryan is the Worst

Here is video of new Republican veep nominee Paul Ryan getting heckled in Iowa yesterday during his very first solo campaign appearance:


Video Description: Paul Ryan tries to give his shitty stump speech, but two women in the audience start chanting "Stop the war on the middle class!" The rest of the crowd starts chanting "USA! USA!" to try to drown them out. As security comes to drag the women away, Ryan says, "It's funny because Iowans and Wisconsinites like to be respectful. These ladies must not be from Iowa and Wisconsin." As one woman shouts, he repeats, "Like I said, she might not be from Iowa." They are taken away, and, as he tries to continue, shouts of "Stop the war on the middle class!" resume. He ignores them and keeps talking, then says, "We're used to this in Wisconsin."

Leaving aside discussion of whether such demonstrations are appropriate and/or effective, because there are legit arguments on both sides of that debate and I don't think there's an objective right answer, I just want to point out how gross Paul Ryan's response to the interruption was.

He could have just stood silently by and waited for them to be carted away.

He could have borrowed a page from the Obama playbook, and said something about how it's all part of the democratic process and it's good to see people passionate about politics.

He could have engaged their request with the seriousness it deserves, by addressing the charge that he's waging war on the middle class with the response that his policies will strengthen the middle class (which is bullshit, but at least it would have been respectful of the demonstrators' position).

Instead, he defined people from Iowa in opposition to the demonstrators, and then declared that the demonstrators must not be from Iowa. I have no idea whether they were, but it's a safe bet that at least some, if not all, of the demonstrators were Iowans. And they don't deserve to be called out as not real Iowans by a potential vice-president of their nation because they disagree with him.

But that's the Republicans' go-to Othering tactic. And, right on cue, the conservatives in the crowd starting chanting "USA! USA!" to drown out protestors, asserting their status as the Real Americans^TM, the arbiters of what is and is not "American."

Is American: Fake free speech like using your corporate profits to fund anti-gay hate groups.

Is Not American: Real free speech like demonstrating at a political event.

Is American: Actual encroachments on free speech like government employees dragging protestors out of a public political event.

Is Not American: Making a choice to not frequent a business that hates you and/or people you love.

It would be bad enough if that sort of Othering rhetoric were just cavernously marginalizing, but it's much worse than that. It's that sort of Othering rhetoric, of nationalism and traitors, that gets people killed.

And Paul Ryan smiles away while he engages in it, without a hint of remorse.