Fear and Politics
Greetings. I am delighted to be a part of the TPMCafe Book Club -- it's one of my favorite bookmarked sites. And I am grateful to Jared Bernstein, Gary Hart, George Lakoff, David Sirota, and Jane Smiley for joining the discussion.
Fear -- specifically the right wing's masterful manipulation of it -- has come to dominate our politics.
In Right is Wrong, I document how, since 9/11, the Right's fear-mongering has been relentless and revolting. It bottomed out during the 2004 presidential campaign with a sewer-level attack ad against John Kerry put together by a 527 group largely financed by a pair of longtime Bush-backers. The TV spot showed pictures of Osama bin Laden, 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, the Chechen school murderers, and the Madrid train bombings and asked: "These people want to kill us. Would you trust Kerry up against these fanatic killers?" Somewhere -- and I don't think it's heaven -- Karl Rove's mentor Lee Atwater was smiling.
And it's only June, but John McCain has already told us that al Qaeda will increase its violent attacks to try and defeat him, and that Hamas wants Obama to win. This is not only laughable but downright loathsome -- and there should be zero tolerance for such distortions in American politics.
Besides, why wouldn't al Qaeda want McCain to win? He's running to give a third term to George Bush, whose disastrous policies have been the terrorists' best recruitment tool.
McCain's "more of the same" platform should disqualify him from being allowed to use sharp scissors, let alone be president of the United States. But the mainstream media still treat him with kid gloves and continue to take his foreign policy positions -- however confused -- seriously.
You can be sure McCain and the Right will continue to play the fear card in 2008 because that's all that's left in their deck. And that's why it's incredibly important that Democrats take back national security as an issue from the Republicans.
The dynamic between the dithering Democrats and the reality-be-damned Republican Right calls to mind that great line from Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity."
In George Orwell's classic 1984, Big Brother uses fear and perpetual war to keep the citizens of Oceania under control--and to blot out memory. "His memory," writes Orwell of Winston Smith, 1984's rebellious hero, "was not satisfactorily under control." Memory control is a perfect description of the mind-set that has allowed Bush and Cheney to repeatedly lie to the American people and get away with it. Again and again and again.
Playing the fear card is simple, crude -- and has worked like a charm for the Right.
As Dr. Daniel Siegel, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist whose book The Mindful Brain explores the physiological workings of the brain, once explained to me, the Right's unrelenting fear-mongering has left voters "shrouded in a 'fog of fear," reacting not with their linear, logical left brain but with their lizard, more emotional, right brain.
Deep in the brain lies the amygdala, an almond-sized region that generates fear. When this fear state is activated, the amygdala springs into action. Before you are even consciously aware that you are afraid, your lizard brain responds by clicking into survival mode. No time to assess the situation, no time to look at the facts, just: fight, flight or freeze.
When we are in this state, we are biologically programmed to pay less attention to left-brain signals -- indeed, our logical mind actually shuts itself down. Fear paralyzes our reasoning and literally makes it impossible to think straight. It's the neuroscience, stupid!
This is why the Rovian Right wants to paint Democrats as having "a pre-9/11 worldview," which, by implication, makes them unwilling to go the extra -- often illegal -- mile to keep America safe.
Precisely because we have real enemies, and real terrorists keep rearing their murderous heads, it is deeply offensive to have the Right use illogical, over-the-top, fear-mongering rhetoric around political events.
But as Election Day 2008 rolls ever closer, you can be sure the Right's fearmongers will be swinging for the fences -- in speeches, in press releases, in campaign ads, and in direct mail come-ons.
Fear is a frighteningly effective sales pitch. It is a powerful, universal emotion -- always there to be exploited. And that's why we need a major counteroffensive -- a wide-ranging campaign to help spread fearlessness, to inoculate the country against this shameful campaign strategy.
Things are always less scary when the lights are on -- so we need to be on a continuous fear watch, keeping our eyes peeled for the attempts to scare voters into voting their fears.
Otherwise, we're going to once again succumb to our lizard brains even as our logical brains tell us that the fear-mongers in power have made us all less safe.
So I'd like to kick off this conversation by asking whether you think the fear card will work again in 2008? Will McCain and the Right be able to appeal to voters' fears by raising the specter of madrassa schools, foreign sounding middle names, missing lapel pins, fulminating preachers, or terrorists celebrating over the election of a specific candidate?
Or will Democrats be able to make the case that the war in Iraq - a war McCain is passionately, almost perversely, committed to continuing - has made us less safe by taking our eye off the real terrorist threats?
Somewhere -- and I don't think it's heaven -- Karl Rove's mentor Lee Atwater was smiling.
Hi Arianna. I'm looking forward to the discussion of your book. For now, I just want to point out that Atwater made a late conversion to Catholicism during his terminal illness, and appears to have very sincerely repented for a lot of his political behavior. He sent a number of letters of apology to people he had hurt or wronged, and wrote this in Life Magazine:
My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring -- acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.
June 9, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Deathbed repentance makes for a nice story, but Atwater's got a few milennia of sucking barbed devil-cock in Hell to atone for his sins.
June 9, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I'd like to kick off this conversation by asking whether you think the fear card will work again in 2008? Will McCain and the Right be able to appeal to voters' fears by raising the specter of madrassa schools, foreign sounding middle names, missing lapel pins, fulminating preachers, or terrorists celebrating over the election of a specific candidate?
No, I think those particular tactics will fail this time.
But I am worried about the recent trend in Democratic discourse to disparage fear of all kinds, to start talking about the amygdala and a couple of trendy and over-reported studies, and to make a sort of religion out of a false ideal of absolute fearlessness. Fear is a natural and useful emotion. A rational approach to life doesn't require the erasure of all fear, but striking the right mean between excessive fear and excessive confidence. Fear does not always produce paralysis or avoidance. Often it produces focussed, energetic, constructive action.
People should be afraid of John McCain. They should be afraid of four or eight more years of Bush-style foreign policy. They should be afraid of the consequences of four or eight more years of carte blanche for corporations and Republican free market fundamentalism while essential public investments are neglected.
They should be afraid of what is happening to the global environment. They be afraid of nuclear proliferation. They should be afraid of the security implications of doing nothing to take control the global energy economy as the the world's major powers drift into a new neo-mercantilist and neo-colonialist era of resource competition, a trend that is likely to result before long in great power war over resources.
These trends are truly frightening to anyone who understands the outcomes toward which they are leading. We should want people to have a healthy fear of those outcomes, so that they can be mobilized to work hard to avoid them.
June 9, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
And where exactly is this zero-tolerance policy supposed to come from, and who is supposed to enforce it, when the infotainment industry that dominates our means of communication is no longer accountable to the public interest but rather to the shareholders of its parent companies? Surely, the answer for seizing the dominance of public discourse from the party of deregulation and privatization lies exactly in the restoration of the public interest within our regulatory agencies. We desperately need to restore the regulatory mission of the FCC in order to hold the communications industry accountable to the public interest. But we ultimately need to rehabilitate the infrastructure of the entire public sphere, restore the trust in our civil bureaucracy and undo the damage done by the likes of Arianna's former hero Ronald Reagan.
June 9, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, we can do that. But even with a more activist FCC, we are not going to be able to stop Republicans from saying things like "Al Qaeda is going to attack us to keep me from winning", or "Hamas wants the Democrats to win". Nor would we want to.
June 9, 2008 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
As it is now, the FCC is quite active in rolling back regulatory requirements like media ownership limits within markets of a certain size. What is needed is the restoration of its full mandate to serve the broader public interest over narrower private corporate interests. Beside ownership limits, public discourse would benefit from restoration of the Fairness Doctrine and equal time requirements.
June 9, 2008 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Arianna says:
"And I am grateful to Jared Bernstein, Gary Hart, George Lakoff, David Sirota, and Jane Smiley for joining the discussion."
Harumph! what am I, chopped liver?
To your point of 'fear.' I'm sure David Bossie or Floyd Brown have dusted off the picture of Willy Horton.
June 9, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
JohnW1141,
Feh! God forbid! But whatever you and I and the rest of us are, we are not the valued punditocracy. So much for people-powered new media....
June 9, 2008 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Huffington was wrong about Clinton, she was wrong about Gore (and her actions make her just as responsible as the rest of the msm for putting Bush in the White House) and she is wrong about this.
The polls say just the opposite - that national security is not the greatest concern of the American people. According to the Rasmussen Report released June 5, only 26% of the voters cite national security as a high priority issue. In fact, 43% name economic issues as their top concerns. These numbers are exactly opposite those numbers cited for 2004. According to the
"Summary of Findings: Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987 - 2007 (Pew) finds that found that fewer than half of those polled believe that the way to achieve peace is through a strong military while more than half believe that strong national security policies are a priority. This study also finds that "today, half of the public (50%) either identifies as a democrat or says they lean to the democratic party."
Overwhelmingly, the polls state that the economy is their number one concern with issues such as income inequality, jobs and housing crowding out any kind of "core value/social value issues. In those, the trend is towards more tolerance and acceptance, especially in supporting the social safety net for all citizens.
The last thing any democrat should do is to claim ownership with the national security policies of this administration or the republican party - let them own it completely, let them hammer away at it, let them wallow in national security issues, it will be their downfall.
My greatest fear isn't some nebulous, unseen enemy frightening the American people, it is that some democratic operative will read this book and thinks Huffington might be on to something. She isn't - as usual, she is wrong. The numbers are trending our way, let's not change the message now.
June 9, 2008 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
The polls say just the opposite - that national security is not the greatest concern of the American people.
The opposite of what? Did Huffington claim that national security is the greatest concern of the American people?
The last thing any democrat should do is to claim ownership with the national security policies of this administration or the republican party.
Who is arguing otherwise? Where are those people in the Democratic party arguing that Democrats should claim ownership with the Bush administration's national security policies? I haven't encountered many.
June 9, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"that's why it is incredibly important that democrats take back national security as an issue from the republicans." Good idea, Dan, let's all raise our hands and say, "me too, me too!" Especially now that all the research/polls say the American people are trending in the opposite direction.
June 9, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good idea, Dan, let's all raise our hands and say, "me too, me too!" Especially now that all the research/polls say the American people are trending in the opposite direction.
Bev, that's really a willfully silly misreading of the claim that Democrats should try to take back national security as an issue from the Republicans. There is a gigantic gulf between saying that Democrats should offer their own distinctive national security policies, and work to convince the public that their policies are the best policies, and saying that they should identify themselves with Bush-Republican policies. Owning the national security issue isn't even remotely the same thing as claiming co-ownership of Bush-Republican national security policies. In fact, the way to achieve ownership of the national security issue is to deplore the Bush policies.
You misstated the Rasmussen results. It is not true that only 26% cited national security as a high priority issue. Instead only 26% cited national security as the highest priority issue. Even if only 26% of Americans think national security is the highest priority issue, 26% is a lot of voters. And 33% of that 26% currently favor Obama, and so are presumably mostly Democrats or independents.
Are you honestly suggesting that Democrats should offer no national security agenda whatsoever in this election?
June 9, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Wilfully silly"? I don't think I'm being silly because I point out that Huffington is wrong on this issue and that this is on the tag end of many issues she's been wrong about. Why would anyone trust her judgement?
I didn't "misquote" the Pew study. Let's not play games here. I could have said that 43% find national security issues a low priority and been perfectly correct. Instead I said that 26% found national security to be of high priority. (It's a nice deflection though, from the topic at hand.) I also didn't claim that "democats should [not] offer their won distinctive national security policies" - who's being silly now?
The point is that for the majority of Americans, national security is not a top priority. Both the Pew and Rasmussen polls make that perfectly clear. The polls also show that for the first time in years, the democrats are either ahead or breaking even with republicans on national security issues. The majority of Americans now believe that the Bush administration misled them on the Iraq war. The correct strategy now is to let McCain wallow in this issue and don't give him an opening to promote a difference between him and Obama on this issue.
June 9, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Instead I said that 26% found national security to be of high priority.
You said this about the Rasmussen report, and it's wrong. I read that report, and what it said is that 26% found the issue to be the highest priority. Surely, for any major issue you can think of, there are going to be many people who find the issue to be "of high priority" or "a high priority" even if they don't find it to be the issue of highest priority. Just because they don't rank an issue #1 doesn't mean they also don't rank it at #2, #3, #4 or #5.
And clearly, the fact that 43% percent name "economic issues such as jobs and economic growth"
as their highest priority in no way implies, as you say it does, that 43% find national security a "low priority".
The report found that among unaffiliated voters, 34% ranked economic issues the highest priority, 24% said national security, 15% said domestic concerns, and 11% said fiscal issues. That suggest to me that national security remains a very important issue, if not the most important issue. Since Huffington didn't claim that Democrats should make national security their top issue, but only that they should take back national security as an issue from Republicans, I don't understand your criticism.
The majority of Americans now believe that the Bush administration misled them on the Iraq war. The correct strategy now is to let McCain wallow in this issue and don't give him an opening to promote a difference between him and Obama on this issue.
I don't get this. It seems to me that as long as the public is so down on the Bush-Republican national security policy, we should want to promote a difference between McCain and Obama on this issue. Obama should frequently make the case that there is a major difference between himself and McCain on these issues, and that a vote for McCain is a vote to continue the disastrous Bush agenda, and agenda which is now deeply unpopular. Why should Democrats run away from an issue that is a winner for them?
June 9, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The last thing any democrat should do is to claim ownership with the national security policies of this administration or the republican party - let them own it completely...it will be their downfall...The numbers are trending our way, let's not change the message now."
Couln't agree more, BevD. For most Americans National Security now means being able to have job security, retirement income security, healthcare security, some reasonable shot at the "American Dream" after investing years of education and work. The GOP, including McCain have tried, and to some extent succeeded in taking the possibility of security away from the 95% of Americans who are not GOP shills, political cronies or corporate pirates.
June 9, 2008 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, Americans aren't the same voters with the same concerns they had in 2004, and allow me to point out that in 04, the race was so close that Bush just squeaked by.
June 9, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The answer to the fear question is yes. The GOP will be able to use the fear card to elect a stooge like McCain to the presidency. The only hope I can see to avoid that is for Democrats to also use that card.
There are real reasons to fear a continuation of the Bush administration, or, for that matter, any other Republican administration. We are now on the edge of an economic disaster for our country, following 8 years of misgoverning by a Republican administration. We are mired in a civil war in Iraq whose outcome has no real relevance to our country. We are now widely and properly known as a nation that ignores the Geneva Conventions, tortures people to get "confessions", uses kangaroo courts to justify continued imprisonment of POWs. We are also entering an era of higher global temperatures, an era that the GOP ignores in order to further concentrate wealth into the hands of their supporters.
Those are the real fears that should drive the voters this year, and it is up to us to make voters aware of them.
June 9, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you think this is so, hoppy? All the polls/studies say the exact opposite. The Pew poll found that less than 26% chose national security as a high priority issue. If the trends show that Americans are gravitating towards the democratic party, the last thing the democrats should do is identify with the republican issues. The American people by 58% think that the government is snooping too much in their lives. (A full 74% think corporations are.) This kind of campaigning by republicans will backfire because a large majority of Americans believe the republicans misled them on national security issues. Here is what the Pew study said about Americans, "the public is losing confidence in itself. A dwindling majority (57%) say they have a good deal of confidence in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making political decisions. Similarly, the proportion who agrees that Americans 'can always find a way to solve our problems has dropped 16 points in the past five years." That tells me that the candidate who can best inject that confidence into the American people is going to win. The candidate that tries to exploit fear is going to lose. It's the difference between Hoover and Roosevelt in 32.
June 9, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the trends show that Americans are gravitating towards the democratic party, the last thing the democrats should do is identify with the republican issues.
I refuse to accept that national security is "a Republican issue." To conced that point is to adopt the same weak stance that was promoted by Daschle, Gephardt and McAuliffe back in 2002, when they too argued we needed to duck and defer quickly on national security, so that we could bring domestic issues back to the top of the agenda. I'll remind you that George Bush has many means at his disposal to raise national security issues right to the top of the agenda in the fall.
June 9, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't 2002, Dan. The metrics have changed. We don't have to "defer" to them, we have to show that their idea of national security is not the same as the democratic party's idea of national security. Our idea of national security is the ability to get a job, have social security, peace of mind about their health and education for their children. The republican idea of national security is endless, mind boggling expensive war financed by the middle class and the working poor.
June 9, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
BevD,
So, where exactly is the distinction you see between what you say and Huffington's "...it's incredibly important that Democrats take back national security as an issue from the Republicans"?
June 9, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It isn't "incredibly important to take...national security from the republicans." This isn't 2004, there are greater priorities for the American people and why give McCain an opening to even discuss it? What's Obama going to say? "Yeah, McCain is right." Who is going to be against national security? And what kind of policies would Obama announce?
June 9, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
"why give McCain an opening to even discuss it?"
Again, you seem to be assuming that discussion of national security issues is a winner for Republicans, and so we should avoid giving them an opening to discuss it.
But it's not. Democrats have a very convincing case to be made this year that they will be better than Republicans at protecting Americans and their interests from foreign attack, and that the McCain-Bush approach to national security has wasted a fortune in lives and financial resources, and made Americans less safe in doing so.
So, of course Obama should not say "McCain is right." He should say that McCain is dead wrong. He should say that diplomatic engagement with potential adversaries in the Middle East will make us safer than will Republican obstreperousness and brinkmanship. He should say that redeploying troops out of Iraq and making them available to respond to other threats will make us safer than keeping in Iraq for many years as McCain wants to do. He should say that paying more attention to what is going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan will make us safer than will Republican neglect. He should say that shrewd Democratic management of defense budget priorities will make us safer than will the Republican fondness for defense boondoggles, corruption and greed. He should say that the Democratic approach to nuclear non-proliferation will make us all safer than will the Republican abandonment of the non-proliferation agenda.
June 9, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you not reading my posts? I assume that national security issues are loser issues for McCain, let him have them. The American people DO NOT believe that national security is a high, higher or highest priority. To quote the Rasmussen Report, "On election day 2004 with 911 still strong in the national memory...the wars Afghanistand and Iraq still omnipresent, 41% said national security was the most important issue...26% rated economic issues as the number one factor...these numbers have been reversed 43% [2008] name economic issues... as the highest priority...just 26% name national security issues such as the war on Iraq and the war on terror."
The report then goes on to say, "it is hard to overstate the impact of these shifting priorities. Those who name economic issues as their top concern favor Obama over McCain by 59% to 33% margin. However, those who focus on national security issues favor McCain 61% to 35%. I'll take those 25 voters to McCain's 16 any day of the week.
So what is the point in jumping on national security as an issue, when the American people are interested in exactly what Obama is talking about now - the economy? Let McCain flail away at it, let people see he's a one note Johnny who is out of touch with their concerns. If republicans think they own national security let them - all Obama has to do is point fingers and laugh (metaphorically speaking) at how out of touch McCain is.
June 9, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Within a few months, I suspect national security is going to be at the top of the agenda again. The Bush administration will likely dump it back on our plates in a fairly dramatic way. A repeat of the standard Democratic heads in the sand approach won't cut it.
It's all connected anyway. Our economic challenges are connected to what is going on in the Middle East, and what is going on in our relationship with China, and what is going on with our national security budget.
June 10, 2008 1:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our idea of national security is the ability to get a job, have social security, peace of mind about their health and education for their children.
I agree 100% that we have to show that the Republicans' idea of national security is not the same as the Democrats' idea of national security. But I think it would be pretty lame to try to re-translate "national security" into an issue that relates mainly to jobs, health, social security and education. Any Democrat who ran on this line would scare off millions of potential voters by conveying the impression that he doesn't even understand what the president's job is, and doesn't understand that in addition to having responsibilities for looking after Americans' jobs, health, social security and education, he also has continuing responsibilities for protecting Americans and their interests from foreign attack.
Democrat, Republican or independent, people know that the President sits atop the nation's national security apparatus, and that there is a body called the "National Security Council" which is chaired by the President, and is part of the Executive Office of the President. And people know that the National Security Council has minimal involvement in health care and social security. They also know the President presides over an executive branch that contains the massive Department of Defense, that the President is constitutionally designated the commander-in-chief of the armed force, and that guiding our national defenses is a major part of the President's responsibilities.
June 9, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Off topic:
1) When are you going to stop publishing Mayhill Fowler on HuffPo?
She does HuffPo, and you, a great disservice. Her tactics are duplicitous. Her reliance on 'gotchya' reporting is exactly the kind of reporting the blogosphere fights against every day from the corp. media.
2) Why doesn't HuffPo answer emails?
I've sent numerous emails regarding this so-called citizen "journalist", but no one ever responds.
It's why I'm posting my questions here.
Thanks,
June 9, 2008 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why would you want her shut up? She is not being paid by anyone. She is doing this pretty much on her own. In other words...she is a free agent. I hated her report on Obama and his 'bitter' comments. But, it was the truth, and he had to answer it. Good practice. Good old Bill got caught in a little 'truthiness' this time. If it keeps Hillary off the ticket...God Bless. Grow up...this time is a new time. Everything is documented one way or another. That is why we have Jim Webb over 'Macacca" Allen. Only good comes from truth. Remember that when you watch Mcbush blow his top sometime very soon.....
June 9, 2008 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it's Mayhill Prowler that secretly records McSame losing his cool and that story sinks his polls numbers to the point of no return, than I guess I'd be more inclined to be as magnanimous as you seem to be in ignoring her ethics (or lack thereof).
This women is right-wing tool pretending to be Democrat and worse, an Obama supporter.
She is neither.
She manipulates situations with inflammatory question; secretly recording her subjects while pretending to be just asking innocent questions.
Even citizen journalists must have standards.
HuffPo isn't the place for her tactics.
George Allen knew he was being recorded and still shot off his mouth. You're comparing apples & oranges.
June 10, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
June 9, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can't be the land of the free if you are not the home of the brave.
June 9, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
...those darned foolish consistencies messin' up little unsuspecting minds. Where's Waldo anyway?
Thanks for great quote.
June 10, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Arianna
You're were I go first is see which way the world is turning every day!
While I see your point on how the repugs have effectively utilized fear