Eliminationism

I learned a new word this week.

On July 27, as you probably know already, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Knoxville was attacked by a gunman, who shot several members of the congregation, killing two. Later developments revealed that Jim David Atkisson, who carried out the assault, harbored strong resentment of what he called “the Liberal movement”—and his reading material included books by right-wing commentators including Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Bill O’Reilly.

While plowing through the voluminous commentary that this event unleashed, I learned my new word: “eliminationism.”

Eliminationism, of course, is a simple and ancient idea, at least as old as Rome’s paving-over of Carthage: “If you can’t beat your opponents into willing submission, wipe them off the face of the earth.” There are even subspecies of eliminationist rhetoric, described thusly by blogger David Neiwart, who has done as good a job as anyone of documenting the phenomenon: “Expressing a desire or a demand for extermination, removal, or infliction of harm; identification of opponents with national enemies; identification of opponents as a target for retaliation or incarceration; expressing a desire for or approval of genocide or murder; identification with vermin or disease.”

And though eliminationism is a staple of extremist thought on both the left and the right (anyone remember the phrase “up against the wall”?), recent years have seen eliminationist statements show up to a much greater degree—and increasing frequency—in the writings and utterances of conservative pundits. (A representative sample of quotes can be found at David Neiwart’s blog “Orcinus” via tinyurl.com/y62xcv)

This isn’t surprising, of course. Even before the 9/11 attacks, liberals, progressives and leftists had been portrayed as not only mistaken on matters of policy, but as being clear and present threats, both to the lives and lifestyles of “real” Americans and even the very existence of America itself.

And since 9/11, the Manichean good-vs.-evil narrative embodied in Bush’s dictum “you’re either with us or against us” has contributed to the temptation to turn rhetoric into action, a temptation that troubled personalities like Atkisson find hard to resist. Indeed, when one sees the prevalence of this rhetoric, the great surprise about attacks like Atkisson’s is not that they happen, but that they aren’t more frequent.

In their own defense, some conservatives point out the parallel with situations like the Columbine attacks, where liberals resisted the suggestion that the killers’ choice of music might have had an influence on their actions. And it is probably true that the vast majority of right-wing radio’s audience has no intention of resorting to violence. Nonetheless, I wonder what will happen after the next terrorist attack, as a shocked and enraged populace once more searches for the nearest available scapegoat, and demagogues manipulate their anger to avoid being held culpable themselves.

And we’re not immune, of course. I find that I also have to avoid such thoughts and fantasies. Eliminationism is not an inevitable outgrowth of conservatism, or even of conservative dominationism, but it is an inevitable outgrowth of any political strategy that aims to leverage the fears of the insufficiently informed. The progress of the logic is clear—dehumanization, demonization and then eliminationism. That’s what we really need to get rid of.

- Skip Mendler