Fight fear-mongering with fear-mongering?

August 19, 2006

Slate’s John Dickerson offers Dems some advice in responding to Republicans’ election-year fear-mongering: fight fire with fire. With the GOP telling voters, “Vote for Democrats and more Americans will die,” it’s the only reasonable approach.

Here’s my advice: The Democrats should embrace fear-mongering more passionately…. The question the Democrats should be asking is whether Bush’s policies are inspiring the people who want to kill us.

This question derives from a central one that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked in his famous October 2003 memo: “Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” In the short term, the answer seems to be no.

The argument in a nutshell is that Republican policies, particularly in Iraq, make the nation less safe. My only question is, why would pointing this out be “fear-mongering”?

Maybe this is a semantics point, but “fear-mongering” suggests baselessly putting fear into people for political gain, even when the facts don’t warrant it. But in this case, Dems need to simply make a reasonable argument based objective fact.

The threat of terrorism has increased. The number of terrorist attacks around the world has gone up every year Bush has been in the White House. The war in Iraq has created a new training ground and recruiting tool for terrorists in the region. I’m not exactly a neutral observer here, but at what point does “fear-mongering” enter the picture?

The point that I think goes unmentioned too often is that the president’s (and the Republican Congress’) record on national security issues is really bad. I know, it’s a well-kept secret, but it’s true.

We’re talking about an administration that largely ignored Clinton’s advice about dealing al Qaeda; didn’t take the “bin Laden determined to strike inside U.S.” memo seriously; invaded Afghanistan but failed to follow through on our commitments; can’t catch bin Laden; launched a devastating war in Iraq that has increased the terrorist threat; watched the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran get considerably worse; leaked classified information for partisan gain; and launched an illegal surveillance program that produced a flood of useless tips. Closer to home, they’ve rejected Democratic efforts to boost homeland security.

Why not make this the signature campaign issue for 2006?

This morning CNN is proudly trumpeting two new upcoming segments = “In The Footsteps of Bin Laden” and “Terror 2.0”.

The promos have the kind of lurid graphics and scary narration one would associate with cheesy grade-B horror flicks.

The British bust didn’t have the hoped-for effect, I guess, so now the Republican lie-machine has to turn to it’s most trusted ally to make people remember to be scared again, just in time for the November elections.

Who would have thought it would be CNN instead of FOX News?

  • Could it be…

    That people like being scared?

    That people want a terrorist threat?

    That people like seeing foreigners killed?

    That people like seeing buildings bombed?

    That people like a secret spynet?

    That people don’t really want to be safe?

    Has anyone got hardcore information on such deep psychology?

    — just asking.

  • Seems to me that quite a few independant dems running for office are doing just that, or something like it. Lamont has certainly honed his message that the war in Iraq has been disastrous in placing most of our resources against the terror threat in the wrong place, exacerbating the problem, and that the war or terror has been a consistent failure of misplaced priorities. My concern is that the establishment dems will start taking over the messages that independant dems have used successfully in primaries and focus group them to death. MYDD has a wonderful analysis of the CA-50 Busby race and very coherant suggestions on message crafting that will actually work . Titled “Democratic Congressional Challengers Strategy Memo” the key conclusions should be on the front door, the bathroom door, the fridge, and tatooed on the arm of every Dem running today. It’s at http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/8/17/16551/9414

  • They’re all bad. CNN was Bush I; this is Bush II. The only answer, imho, is to turn off all TeeVee (okay, maybe let “The O.C.” reruns through, and “Boston Legal” when it returns). Certainly all TeeVee so-called “news”.

    I strongly favor making GOP-induced-fear a central focus for the political campaigns. That, coupled with “Had Enough?”, and even “We can do better” (with a crawl of “health care”, “environmental protection”, “petroleum independence”, and so on) would make for great TeeVee spots.

  • I was driving home earlier this week when a PSA came on the radio concerning emergency preparedness. It was brought to us by the Department of Homeland Security and the Ad Council. I had never heard one these ad before. The first thing that came to my mind was that BushCo. was using these DHS ads to subliminally plant fear in the minds of the American people. My guess is that we will see a barrage of these ads as we approach the Fall election season. They will be explained away as part of heightened alertness as a result of the fifth anniversary of 9/11. It would be hard to prove but I think the DHS and Ad Council are providing BushCo. free political ads.

  • Cynically, I’d say Repugs get off the mark faster than Dems. Take “Vote for Democrats and more Americans will die”. Now substitute Republican’ts for Democrats, and you get something we know is nearer the truth. Democrats could easily and legitimately have come out with “Vote for Republicans and more Americans will die” — but they didn’t. Why not?

  • Goldilocks, Let’s go with a more positive message. Vote for Democrats and more Americans will live and live better.

  • To follow up on my naughty questions about people liking fear, etc., and rege’s DHS and Ad Council ads comment, I do believe that at an unconscious level people like fear. It’s exciting — the adrenaline rush — which is confirmatory of existence. It’s the nearest your average citizen gets to a drug buzz. It’s unifying — we’re all in it together. It makes us feel called upon to be resourceful — it empowers us. And, most important of all, it makes us cling to the known — the status quo.

    I’d be very surprised if these Repugs were not thoroughly genned up on this stuff. They’re playing it for all they’re worth, so what’s the counter?

    Do the same and change the name? No, because they got in first.

    Find some equally primitive need among the population? Could work. What would the candidates be? The most basic drives the human animal experiences are to do with survival and reproduction. You threaten them, they huddle together. You deprive them, they go searching. You attract them, they make babies. You insult them, they believe in ‘God’.

    You play on fear — they stick close to you. But, you deprive them, and they go searching. Many are feeling the pinch of encroaching deprivation, so that’s a good option. The reproductive drive has not been properly tapped (politically). Young people, especially women, are feeling confused and denied in an atmosphere of disapproval and prohibition. Counter that. Offer genuine guidance and resources to allow natural desires to be indulged safely. Finally, discover a meaningful basis for life and purpose that doesn’t insult intelligence.

    The repugs are successful because they’ve tapped primitive urges. The Dems could do the same.

  • Living under left-inspired fear doesn’t seem all that different from living under right-inspired fear.

    I’d much rather America have a choice between (1) irrational, out of control fear, and (2) caution proportional to the threat — accompanied by focused action to remove the threat.

    Instead of running out to buy duck tape and plastic wrap, we should be breathing into brown paper bags.

  • Should we fight fire with fire? Yes.

    Should we confront fearmongery with fearmongery? Absolutely.

    Because, in the end, we can prove our “fearmongery” to be factual Truth—which is the “Democratic Dreadnought” that’ll blow those snivelling little Swiftboaters clean out of the ocean.

    It’s time to give the order—“Form Battle Line….”

  • In my opinion, a lighter touch or a softer approach is in order, at least to the extent that- to put it bluntly- it is kind of un-intelligent to talk about this kind of thing on a blog because of how it could be misinterpreted, or intentionally misinterpreted.

    This is kind of like a Republican scam that I call ‘too much of a good thing’ or ‘make them go too far.’ Let’s say Democrats start catching on, despite of all Republicans’ efforts, and catch on to a good point, like what we were talking about last week on the discussion group post- talking well & informedly about terror and national security.

    Now they haven’t kept us from talking about the point that is most going to catch people’s attention. They haven’t kept us from talking about it well and they haven’t kept us from preparing to talk well. They haven’t kept us from being ready to keep the Republican from using bully tactics in the conversation. So what else can they do to try to mess us up?

    Get us to do a little too much of a good thing- spread a message out there to make us think there’s some sense in being so focused on whatever we should be focusing on, that it’s actually going too far. Here, what would be going to far?

    Well, maybe doing all the things we say the Republicans are doing: fear-mongering and resorting to demagoguery; manipulating people and representing the threat as something far different than what it actually is to get people to do things that have nothing to do with effectively countering the threat but rather are for partisan advantage. That, in the context of facing terrorism, might be going too far.

    So what if they can get a message out they makes us, on our blogs, not just start talking about talking about the threat of terrorism and national security issues much more seriously, but also makes us write posts that can be paraphrased as:

    1) the Republicans are politically successful through fear-mongering
    2) therefore, maybe we should say things that are somewhat similar to the statements used in that message

    Now, could be benign. But it’s easy to misrepresent.

    And understand, there are so many, middling, moderate people who aren’t really racist, who don’t really think that regular people are scumbags, but who the real Republicans (like George Allen) have to manipulate and have to make think that Republicans aren’t about racism and xemophobia and classism, and who they have to make think that all we liberals are a bunch of jerks, in order to keep screwing us over. They have to keep those people from looking at too much of what we say, they have to lie about us, and they have to mischaracterize what those people do see of what we say. So if you’re going to write things on your blogs like ‘we should resort to fear mongering’ you’re just giving them fodder and walking right into the kind of really blatant misrepresentation we know they’re perfectly capable of and that they’ve kept doing again and again.

  • The DSCC had a video out a few days ago (it seems to be gone now) that listed a number of Bush’s security failures. It ended with the tagline “Feel Safer?” So the Democrats are open to at least trying this approach.

  • Goldilocks and all;

    The approach of fighting fear with fear is valid – modern Cognitive Science bears it out.

    It’s tied to the ‘Frames’ we use to comprehend our world. These frames allow certain information in and keep others out. If we took all data in as equally valid we’d live in a state of uncertainty. Approximately 15% of people are comfortable handling data sets that are contradictory, the rest are not.

    One of the strongest forces reinforcing our ‘Frame’ is survival. Marketers know this and use it, sometimes camouflaged, other times it’s blatantly apparent. Survival includes, shelter, food, water, and sex, as well as safety from those who would harm us.

    So, the logical argument is that we operate on a higher level. We do when we feel safe on a deep level. Most of this is hard wired into us. Do you feel afraid when you hear an advertisement for fast food? If we were logical we would since the leading cause of death is heart disease as well as many cancers that are the result of diets high in saturated fats.

    Our response to information must also pass through the base of the brain – limbic and brain stem – before we can act. The prefrontal cortex has to deal with the gatekeeper that’s not much different from the brains of lizards, hence the common name: Lizard Brain.

    ‘Frames’ incorporate a survival component at their core. They tell us that what’s worked in the past will most likely work in the future. Changing a ‘Frame’ is challenging, akin to that first jump off the high dive. Their are two ways to overcome the ‘Lizard Brain’ and to access a ‘Frame’: Bring up a Limbic Hot Button as in comment #16 by hardcle, or humor, ala Jon Stewart. Both allow all lobes of the brain to integrate.

    Logical approaches are effective only if people agree with you already, or trust you on a deep level – they know you well and you are not threatening to them. In large scale media this trust is not achievable. This is one reason that ‘nice’ proposals tend to fall flat when people are frightened.

    Here’s one formula that may illustrate the process:
    1. Get the attention of your audience.
    2. Use a Limbic Hot Button.
    3. Couple this with a meaningful alternative stated simply and with emphasis.
    4. Repeat, repeat, repeat……….
    5. Guideline: Be respectful of people’s integrity and wisdom.
    6. Leave the humor approach to people like Jon Stewart, but, if you’ve got it, use it!!!! It’s one of Bill Clinton’s strengths.

  • The latest plot in the UK would seem to underscore the fact that the terrorist threat has widened geographically and deepened socially around the world since 9/11. Bush and company would have us believe that such a situation is reason to keep them in office. That’s nothing but a fool’s argument, though. “We’ll keep you safe because the world has become less safe with us in office.” Sadly, there are a lot of stupid, ignorant people in this country who will buy that basic premise. They’ll say, “See. We haven’t been attacked again since 9/11, so they’re keeping us safe in an unsafe world.” Of course, I think that points out the dubious origin of 9/11, if nothing else.

    And speaking of 9/11, isn’t it odd that the Bush administration and its neo-con cabal were so cavalierly inattentive to looming terrorist threats in 2001? This was in spite of the fact that the neo-con/PNAC agenda expressly asserted that a variety of threats to U.S. security were on the near horizon, thus justifying the need for dramatic increases in military spending? In other words, their justification for a militaristic, globally assertive policy should have put us all on guard for what transpired on 9/11. So why were they so inattentive to the threats on which they, themselves, had based their grand policy construct for the 21st century (the New American Century, as they dubbed it)?

    These are very troubling questions. Unfortunately, many Americans aren’t willing to find the answers. They’re too willing to cower under their beds in fear of the terror bogeymen. Just as the Bush cabal would have them.

  • George W. Bush couldn’t even protect the people of New Orleans from a hurricane that was known to be extremely dangerous — well in advance. How can he protect us from terrorism?

    Bush, the Katrina President.

  • One very effective scare point for our side could be the environment. Why are we not using it?

    New Southern and Midland Strategy: (Why those areas? They get most of the violent weather.)

    Republicans are soft on global warming! (The charge that Dems are soft on assorted boogeymen always been a Republican mainstay.) Vote for a Republican and you’ll soon have the Atlantic lapping at your toes in Atlanta, Richmond and Charlotte! Your kids will be consumed by monstrous storms and your cotton fields will become deserts!

    Anyhow, isn’t this more true than the various Repug sponsored fears, like the looming Commie takeover that got them elected for so many years?

  • If Bush is the Ruler of The Wind and Sea do we give him credit for this summer’s lack of Hurricanes?

  • Ad image:
    Water flooding over the levies in New Orleans,
    Illegals flooding through the fences in Texas,
    Shites flooding the streets of Baghdah supporting Hezbollah,
    U.S. Military wounded flooding our field hospitals.

    Narrative: “George Bush and the Republican party claim they have made America safer. Just how is that?”

  • The key to the Republican success in creating, maintaining and spreading fear is that they relentless address the reptile brain. Rove is a market researcher: check this potential out at:

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