Fear-mongering is bipartisan
I was with Leonard Pitts in his column today until he got to this sentence:
"Former Vice President Albert Arnold Gore Jr. has spoken of 'the assault on reason,' meaning the tendency of conservatives in modern political discourse to manipulate people based on emotion or fear, rather than to persuade them based on logic."
Sorry, but playing up fears for political advantage is definitely a bipartisan practice.
Terrorism? Sure, Republicans try to use it in their favor. But so do liberals who say President Bush's policies have made us less safe from terrorists.
In my memory, political fear-mongering goes back to the infamous "mushroom cloud" TV commercial aired by the Johnson presidential campaign, which implied that electing Barry Goldwater would lead to nuclear war. Pretty emotional.
Later, Ronald Reagan was portrayed as a dangerous cowboy by his opponents on the political left. Not only was he pushing the "doomsday clock" to midnight by standing up to the Soviet Union, he was also out to destroy Social Security, spread AIDS and bankrupt the country.
So please don't tell me it's an exclusive tendency of conservatives to manipulate people based on emotion or fear. Politicians of all stripes have been doing that for a long time, and they won't stop as long as voters respond to it.
Comments (6)
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Not "exclusive." Just "omnipresent these days."
See:
"gut level on terror alert" for the most recent example
Posted on July 12, 2007 9:08 AM
Right. I have gut-level concerns, too, after the recent incidents in Britain. What I'd like from the director of Homeland Security is an impression that we're thinking ahead of the bad guys.
Posted on July 12, 2007 10:18 AM
What I'd like from the director of Homeland Security is an impression that we're thinking ahead of the bad guys.* Doug
Boy are you in trouble if you think the director or Big brother in charge is thinking ahead on anything.
That gut reaction he had yesterday was from a bad plate of Taco Bells .99 cent special from the night before.
Posted on July 12, 2007 12:48 PM
You forgot to mention that Republicans want to starve old people, spread hate and deny health care to small children among other evils.
Posted on July 12, 2007 10:49 PM
Not to mention shred the constitution, install a far-right Christian theocracy and fry the planet through global warming.
Posted on July 13, 2007 8:26 AM
Doug:
More evidence of the administration's "reasoned" approach to informing the American public. Tony Snow made the following comment this week on Fox News, "To walk out of Iraq right now would plant a seed that ultimately would lead to destabilization there, hundreds of thousands of deaths, loss of our influence in the region, would create instability throughout the Middle East throughout East Asia, throughout Europe. And sooner or later it would come to our shores, to a shopping mall near you."
Shoppers beware!
Posted on July 13, 2007 5:50 PM