Fear Itself
My gut tells me that Americans fear Bush and company more than we fear terrorism. The media is awash with the discussion of fear in the 2024 election. Since campaign speeches and television commercials have demonstrated that “scare tactics” are central to the Republican strategy, these tactics have been reported as news. I think this is superficial and that there will be an election day surprise.
Since September 11, 2024 the grand thefts of this administration have been camouflaged by the red, white and blue. Enormous transfer payments to Cheney’s cronies, the gutted surplus, the weapons systems boondoggles all bear witness to a level of greed that’s embarrassing at best. Who let the hogs out?
Talk radio then turned to the use of torture and suspension of civil liberties as tactics to jump start the “war on terrorism.” A lot of people started thinking then that “if WE can torture THEM, then WE can torture ME if I am somehow confused with THEM. The logic of this construct carries it’s own governor against the exercise of free speech. The inhumanity at Guantanamo was revealed by Brits who had been caught in the net. The public’s sense that those who complained had probably done something to merit their being held at Gtmo mediated the discussion of this. When the perversions of Abu Ghraib came to light, it was more comfortable for us all to chalk them up as the misdeeds of a rogue cadre of prison guards, and not look to closely at the policies and practices that fostered them.
But the issues of torture and bullying and instigation of fear had been planted as seeds in the mind of the public, and that fear has been slowly germinating there for the last few years.
Martha Stewart went to jail. While corporate evil-doers around the country have so far escaped prosecution, Martha Stewart got caught in the net. There’s a message for women here, and the message is another seed planted and quietly germinating.
Families across the country have taken pride in the patriotic work of reservists an National Guard troops close to them, They’ve also enjoyed a little extra income that comes from the normal duty expected of the reserves and the Guard. None of these mommies and daddies expected to be swept up in an ill planned military misadventure like Iraq. Reserves are expected to be use when the regular troops are stretched too thin. But there are bullies in Washington who can make these life changing decisions without batting an eye and people are ever more afraid of them.
Science has received a battering from the right-wing. The battering is of course tactical. The Christian true believers are being used to create a polarized climate, and those of us who believe in privacy and choice, in research and exploration are discouraged from speaking. Perhaps as many as thirty-five percent of Americans let their Christian and cultural deprivation over-rule their intellect and curiosity. Anger and fear in these people has long since driven out joy and love and hope. Fear begets fear and most of us have a reasonable sensitivity and caution when dealing with severe personality disorders and violent people. So the public discussion of these matters has been reduced to separate marketing campaigns, NARAL versus the weird alliance of Southern Baptists and the Pope. We who feel a bit of quiet gratitude for the medical progress since Roe v. Wade are not comfortable talking about it. The discomfort is another seed of fear.
My moral abacus is in the repair shop, and conventional polling can’t be expected to work in a climate where one fears offering a candid opinion, so I don’t have a metric to apply as I work out a prediction for November 2. But the baseline of the foolish, the bullies, the ignorant, and the duped is around 35% and I’ll be surprised if the popular vote for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove/Rice wolf pack exceeds that.
