WATCH: Just Two Days After One GOP Politician ‘Body-Slammed’ a Journalist Texas Governor ‘Jokes’ About Shooting Reporters

What was unacceptable a decade ago is now not only acceptable, but rewarded. And that’s a problem.

Late Wednesday afternoon Republican Greg Gianforte allegedly “body-slammed” a reporter who asked him a question about health care policy. On Friday morning, less than two days later, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott “joked” about shooting reporters, while holding up a target at a gun range, where he had just signed a bill dramatically lowering the fee to obtain a license to buy a gun.

Texas Tribune journalist Patrick Svitek documented the event.

“I’m gonna carry this around in case I see any reporters,” Governor Abbott, who has declared war on LGBT, and especially transgender people, told, amazingly, reporters, Svitek included.

UPDATE: Here’s the video –

Cue the conservatives who no doubt will begin attacking liberals as both “anti-gun” and “can’t take a joke,” but the reality is we live in a society where basic acceptable norms of behavior, and yes, thought, are eroding quickly. 

If you doubt it, consider this.

On August 11, 2006, sitting Republican U.S. Senator George Allen of Virginia at a small outdoor campaign re-election gathering pointed out a young man who was recording his chat with supporters. He was a “tracker,” working for one of Allen’s opponents.

“This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent,” Allen told group. “Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”

“Macaca” is a racial slur.

That was effectively the end of his Senate career. He lost his re-election bid because he used a slur against a minority individual.

On June 16, 2015 Donald Trump stood in the lobby of his New York City headquarters and told supporters he was going to run for president.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump infamously said. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Donald Trump of course went on to win the White House. One month after being sworn in, Trump called the press “the enemy of the people.”

How we treat people in this country has changed, dramatically, and people like Donald Trump, and Greg Abbott, and Greg Gianforte, are in part, to varying degrees, to blame. What was unacceptable a decade ago is now not only acceptable, but rewarded.

Newsweek today said Governor Abbott’s “joke” was part of the “unrelenting Republican assault on the free press,” and noted it “would have been in exceedingly poor taste in any circumstances, but it is especially so now” because of the attack on the British journalist by Montana’s Greg Gianforte.

The last time journalists were murdered in the United States was on August 26, 2015, when Alison Parker and Adam Ward of a CBS affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia, were shot during a live segment. The killer was a disgruntled former employee. In 2007, a reporter for The Oakland Post, Chauncey Bailey, was shot and killed for investigations into allegations of corruption at Your Black Muslim Bakery, a popular business run by black nationalists. 

Those, however, were disparate incidents. Under President Donald Trump, suspicion and even hatred of the mainstream press has all but become dogma among some sectors of the Republican Party. Such a toxic relationship between a major political party and members of the press has not been witnessed since the days of Watergate.

Yes, cue the conservatives who no doubt will begin once again attacking liberals as both “anti-gun” and “can’t take a joke.” 

But get the ambulances ready too. Because, ultimately, and unfortunately, that where this leads.

Image: Patrick Svitek‏ via Twitter

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