Jared Loughner, the would-be assassin of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, may not have been affiliated with the Tea Party. He may have simply been an insane individual, who acted on his own prerogative. However, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are still guilty.
They are guilty of poisoning the United States's political atmosphere to the extent that rational debate is impossible. They are responsible for the increased militancy in American politics of late, the rising spitefulness between the two major parties and the decreasing legislative productivity of Congress. Palin's rhetoric promotes figurative violence to achieve her aims, which too often translates into literal violence. Her website included a map in which Democratic members of Congress were placed in rifle crosshairs, and her catchphrase was to not "retreat", but to "reload". Other Tea Partiers also promulgated this doctrine of violence, exemplified by Sharron Angle's outburst that the people should take it into their own hands to defend their Second Amendment rights, a shrill, clarion call to literal arms.
The vitriol in American civil society is approaching the toxic environment preceding Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in 1995. Reactionary extremists like the members of the Tea Party, who would rather detonate any chance of civil debate than concede any part of their questionable aims, have created a turbulent arena in which maniacs like Loughner thrive. Sarah Palin is not directly responsible for the tragedy in Arizona, but she bears the ponderous weight of the six dead and thirteen wounded, for encouraging this dangerous contemporary state of affairs.
