The Politics of Fear

Pres. Obama made two statements over the weekend, one of which made me proud, the other, not so much. When he voiced his support of the right of Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero, despite the fact that the majority of Americans do not favor it, I thought it was a good thing. Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of our liberties.

However, I also read that Pres. Obama stated that the Republicans wanted to kill Social Security. And although I believe that he is essentially correct in this, I had hoped that the politics of fear would be left to the domain of the Republicans. Historically, they are so much better at it.

Politicians liked saying that, “9/11 changed everything.” I think it changed the way that fear could be used against Americans for political advantage. If you weren’t for George W. Bush, you were against him. If you weren’t for his policies, you were for the terrorists. If you weren’t for torture – I mean enhanced interrogation -you were, at least, misguided.

If you weren’t in favor of illegal wiretapping, you were a terrorist sympathizer. The perversion of our government was a damned amazing thing to watch.

Since that time, the politics of fear has slowly expanded. Now, we must fear a government takeover of our health care system. We must also fear immigrants coming across our southern border, beheading people, taking our jobs, and straining our social services. We must also fear that the immigrants are coming here to have babies, which then become US citizens. Baby terrorists.

And for good measure, we need to fear that the Democrats will raise our taxes.

And after eight years of totally ignoring it, we must fear deficit spending.

And now, with the tea partiers chiming in, let’s also fear government regulation. Of everything.

As much as their hypocrisy frightens me, in a sick way I admire the ability of the Republican Party to twist things to their advantage. Economically, they had people voting against their own interests. In what used to be a free society, they had people giving up all kinds of rights, both in their freedom from governmental intrusion, but also in the face of a mounting tide of corporate intervention in politics. Unlimited political donations will corrupt our political system in ways unimaginable.

So what should we be afraid of? We should fear massive, chronic unemployment. We should fear the erosion of our middle class. We should fear the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. But we should not fear these things like children cowering from the threat of some Hollywood monster.

Instead, we should use the knowledge of what is going on to adjust our policies and our perceptions.

Death panels, death taxes, huge government takeovers and bailouts. This is the sound of dog whistle politics.

As a motorcyclist, I believe the little fear is not necessarily a bad thing. However, when fear is injected to produce paralysis we have a real problem. I think this is what the Republicans are banking on for November’s elections.

After eight years of Bush policies, I was encouraged that a black democrat could defeat a Republican campaign based almost totally on fear politics. After a year and a half of Republican obstructionism in congress, I am disheartened to see the increasing use of everything negative in the political arena. It is my hope that the majority of voters will try and remember what it was like when the Republicans last ran the show.