Obama in Tucson

The president’s speech could mark the end of the sectarianism that the tea party has imposed.

Barack Obama has managed to move a large majority of Americans in a speech in Tucson concerning the massacre perpetrated by Jared Lee Loughner, in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was injured. Concerning this same event, Sarah Palin deepened the division between her advocates and adversaries even more. Conflicting outcomes of each intervention relate to experience, and the formation and rhetorical skills of both players, in which there is no personal or institutional comparison worthy of name. They must view the situation, however, with two irreconcilable methods of understanding politics.

The Tucson massacre was the work of a young man whom politicians are describing as “unstable.” If a crime has moved the United States, it would be because the political environment sponsored by the tea party probably coined the event as a political attack. What ultimately proved to be the act of a madman has allowed Americans a sigh of relief, but it has pushed them into a forced reflection regarding the limits of political debate. For the tea party, everything proved legitimate before the killings and, judging by their reactions, for afterward as well, when their representatives presented themselves as victims of a ruling class that betrayed the essence of a nation. For Obama, Democrats and most Republicans, political debate does not intend to distinguish between good and bad Americans, but rather between better and worse arguments.

Obama’s speech could mark a turning point that would liberate U.S. policy from the cycle of sectarianism carried along by the tea party. The president conducted himself at the height that the occasion called for — in much the same manner as he did when the Republican Party replaced a vote against the health care reform in Congress and before Palin’s vicious pack of followers — in a motion that condemned the killings. But one cannot underestimate the ability of a movement that, like the tea party, prefers slogans over arguments. When Palin used the phrase “blood libel” in response to those who were directly or indirectly were to blame for what happened in Tucson, she not only hoped to refer to the persecuted Jews but she also intended to identify her opponents with Nazism, against any means that seemed legitimate.

If the reflection about the limits of open political debate following the Tucson killings is unable to isolate the tea party, it may not be long before American democracy faces one of its darkest recurring chapters. So far the controls exercised by Congress, the judicial branch and public opinion have always worked, and it is hoped that this time they will too. But the virulence of the tea party speeches will not be trivialized, nor will the effectiveness of their slogans be underestimated, when considering their growing presence in American public life.