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A Lesson on the Politics of Fear Email Print

By Duke1676
11/01/2005 02:59:10 PM EST

When they married in 1948 my parents, like most of their generation, were New Deal Democrats. They were part of what would later be called "The Greatest Generation", coming of age during the Great Depression and tested by war. Having seen a world with great deprivation and danger, they had a near religious belief in the power of government to do great good. Their faith was well founded. They had seen first hand a government that had literally fed the starving, brought light into darkness, educated the ignorant, gave power to the powerless, and defeated unimaginable evil.

After a few years, the GI Bill allowed my parents to buy a small yet comfortable house in the suburbs and move from the crowded apartment in Brooklyn that they shared with my aunt and uncle. For my father, the son of immigrants, the opportunity to start a family and own his own home seemed nothing short of miraculous. This country and its government were nothing short of the embodiment of the shining city on the hill in my parents eyes.  

Around this time their politics started to subtly change. The cold war and its aura of fear had begun to permeate the American political landscape.

In the early 1950's the Republicans hit upon a strategy to defeat the powerful hold the Democratic Party had earned over the American public. They could play upon the public's fear of communism and whip them into a frenzy of paranoia. While Joe McCarthy did his best to convince the public that there were communists behind every corner, Nixon mastered the tactic of red-baiting as he came to power.

At the height of this period many lifelong Democrats began to see the Republicans as the only party that could keep them safe. Fear appeared to be an unbeatable political weapon, and my parents fell victims to it. By 1960 their faith in Liberal beliefs was shaken and a 4x6 poster of Richard Nixon hung in our front picture window.

For the next forty years, the Republican's used fear to gain power. Goldwater preached a rabid form of anti-communism. Nixon's "Silent Majority" and "Southern Strategy" played on fears of race, urban unrest, moral decay, change, and the growing youth movement. Reagan had us battling an "Evil Empire" that would require "Star Wars" technology to defeat. As long as they could maintain the level of fear at a fever pitch, they could maintain power.

Something interesting happened to my parents during this period. After nearly thirty years of being staunch Republicans, things began to change sometime during Reagan's first term. I don't think it was one single event or action that pushed them over the edge, but rather a culmination of years of compounded fear and anguish.  They simply just got tired of being constantly told to be afraid. They got tired of one new threat after another, a new fear replacing the old. They could no longer stand to  live in a state of perpetual apprehension.

That's the one problem with the politics of fear, after a while people just can't continue to live that way. The emotional investment that is required cannot be maintained over long periods of time. My parents  had had enough with the paranoia politics of the Republican Party and eventually returned to their progressive roots. It was a long journey but by 1984 there was a Mondale sticker on their car bumper.

The current crop of Republican fear mongers now whip a new generation up with tales of unimaginable horror, dividing them along lines of religion, race and economics. We should never forget the lesson of my parents. With each new terror alert or threat of mushroom clouds, the fear mongers take us closer to the breaking point. With every political campaign that relies on hate, fear and bigotry they wear the American people down. Eventually only their most ardent followers, those from the fringes of society, will be able to take it. The majority of people,  like my parents before them, will simply  have just had enough.

During their lifetimes, my parents witnessed Government during its greatest shining moment and its lowest point of cynicism. In the end they chose optimism over apprehension, compassion over hate, equality over injustice, and hope over fear. They had learned a valuable lesson in the politics of fear.


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A Lesson on the Politics of Fear | 34 comments (23 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden)
not just fear (4.50 / 2)
I just want to raise a point here that I tried to express in the same diary over at My Left Wing, which is to advise against overstating the role of fear in Republican political alchemy.  

Invoking fear as largely determinative of why people vote Republican absolves them from moral responsibility, in my view.  The implication is that they're hapless dupes of canny fearmongers.

What this analysis leaves out is the role of rational self-interest.

For example, racism isn't just about fear of the other, it's also about protection of one's own privilege and material share of the pie.  A racist might not want a black family living across the street not because they're primally afraid, but simply because they're greedy and jealous to protect their own status.

Excluding minorities from the action is not just about fear, but it's a kind of protectionism--minorities also represent increased competition for diminishing resources.  

So while fear is of course a factor, greed and selfishness are also factors, and ones that have nothing to do with the sort of primal fear of the shadows that the Republicans exploit as well.  

by weeping for brunnhilde on 11/02/2005 12:50:33 PM EST

Fear v. Self-Interest / Individual v. Group Action (4.50 / 2)
There are two problems with this account, IMHO. First, it overlooks how fear worked against self-interest. Second, it frames everything in terms of individual motivation and responsibility, ignoring the social, institutional and historical context.

The history of white flight shows that fear undermined self-interest.  If a single black family moved into a block, real estate agents would start to panic the rest of the whites with talk about falling house prices. If the white families had resisted the fear, they would have lost none of their home value.

But virtually everywhere, people gave into fear.  Not everyone all at once.  But it didn't take everyone all at once. All it took were a few families. They sold at below market, and that act of panicked selling lowered the market.  The result was that the fear of a few served to blur the difference, and there was no longer any way to distinguish between fear and self-interest.

But in the beginning there was. Fear was the enemy of self-interest.  Fear won out because the white families failed to organize themselves to resist the fearmongering aimed at them.  Indeed, they were foolish enough to think that the real estate agents were helping them!

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/02/2005 09:59:00 PM EST

[ Parent ]
agreed (none / 0)
I agree with everything you write but I wonder if there's another possible interpretation.

The history of white flight shows that fear undermined self-interest.  If a single black family moved into a block, real estate agents would start to panic the rest of the whites with talk about falling house prices. If the white families had resisted the fear, they would have lost none of their home value

In this account, the fear is of lowered property values.  That's fear of material loss.  

But what about the fear, if we want to call it that, of diminished status?  What if underlying the ostensible, economic rationalization (God, I better sell before the property value goes down) was the deeper concern that the black family across the street, regardless of their impact on property values, would diminish their status by virtue of their presence alone?  An integral component to white status is and was, of course, not having to live next to blacks.  

If this hypothesis is even partially correct, I'd have to say that the jealous desire to maintain one's status is not about fear, in the sense of hysteria, but is rather based in the accurate recognition that the act of accepting the black family's intrusion per se represents a reduction in one's status.  

The issues are obvioulsy deeply complicated and intertwined, and there's no answer.  But I do want to preserve some degree of personal accountability for racist behavior and not reduce it all to racists being victimized by those who would exploit their racism.  It's important to remember that on some level, it suited them to be racists in the first place.    

by weeping for brunnhilde on 11/03/2005 02:01:26 AM EST

[ Parent ]
'Personal Accountability' Is A Rightwing Frame (none / 0)
I really think we need to embrace a reconciliation frame if we want to move our country forward.  I don't think there's any question that there was fear of status loss involved. But for what purpose do we bring this up?  To raise our own status, because we are better than them?

Here's what Martin Luther King had to say on the subject in his speech, "The Drum Major Instinct":

The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong.

So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking--calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point--that was the second or third day--to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."

Now that's a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he's superior because his skin is white--and can't hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out. (Amen)

He wasn't trying to rebuke his jailers. He was reaching out to try to educate them, to redeem them.  And that's what we should be about, IMHO.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/03/2005 09:21:52 AM EST

[ Parent ]
yes (none / 0)
I really think we need to embrace a reconciliation frame if we want to move our country forward.  I don't think there's any question that there was fear of status loss involved. But for what purpose do we bring this up?  To raise our own status, because we are better than them?

Maybe you're right.  I don't know.  You're talking about framing and I'm not sure I am.

I thought Duke was trying to analyze the reasons why so many were hoodwinked and posited that fear was mostly responsible.  

I was just trying to complicate the analysis because I thought it was too rosey in casting racists as dupes of fear rather than witting accomplices to their own manipulation through fear because it suited them to be so manipulated.  

Duke's analysis presumes (at least I think it does) that once you dispel the fear, people will be more just.  In fact, it goes so far as to say that the fear will dispel itself, if only through overuse.  

I'm not trying to talk about framing, I'm trying to analyze how and why people are and have been motivated to act unjustly or be complicit with injustice.  

By all means, welcome them into the fold, educate them, love them.  I'm all for that.  But at the same time, a critical aspect of justice (peace and reconciliation) is personal accountability (your phrase, not mine), right-wing frame or no.  

It's not enough for me to gloss over reality (if my analysis is at all valid) by attributing the behavior and politics of the people Duke is referring to Republican vodoo.  I'm uncomfortable with locating evil soely in the hands of the party as manipulators while absolving all those who (probably not so blindly) allowed themselves to be manipulated.

I'm repeating myself now, I fear, but I hope I've made my point.  I'm not asking you to agree with it (I'm not sure I do, in the end), just to understand its possible utility.  

Finally: He wasn't trying to rebuke his jailers. He was reaching out to try to educate them, to redeem them.  And that's what we should be about, IMHO.

It's sort of ironic that I'm taking the position I am because all my life I've believed fervently in this aspect of King's vision, which is the vision of Jesus, Plato, the Enlightenment, etc.  Namely, that education can redeem and that evil results from ignorance, lack of knowledge and understanding of the good.  Education is the means by which goodness is spread and evil countered.

While part of me believes this, or at least wants to, I have many doubts.  Sorry for the open cadence, but I'll have to leave it there for now.    

by weeping for brunnhilde on 11/03/2005 11:39:29 AM EST

[ Parent ]
It's very interesting. (none / 1)
I thought Duke was trying to analyze the reasons why so many were hoodwinked and posited that fear was mostly responsible.

Duke's analysis presumes (at least I think it does) that once you dispel the fear, people will be more just.  In fact, it goes so far as to say that the fear will dispel itself, if only through overuse.  

I originally intended the piece to be a simple inspirational story of faith lost then found, and a reminder of what a truly liberal democratic government could accomplish.

It was never intended as an analysis of how, or why America turned its back on its liberal heritage. The subject is too complex and could never be summed up with simple blanket statements.  But I'm glad you brought up these points. I think that the questions you have raised are important ones, particularly in light of today's struggle for the soul of the American people and our democracy.

You're absolutely right when you point out that the motivations of those who abandon liberalism (or as you put it "act unjustly or be complicit with injustice") go beyond fear.  For most, their decisions are based on the darkest of human shortcomings; greed, racism, envy, etc.

But just as I would be on very shaky ground to present a serious analysis of the subject based solely on fear as a motivating factor, I think we lose historical context when viewing the period solely through the prism of race, or greed, or any one single causation..

The postwar period up to the end of the cold war is perhaps one of the most complex in our history. The amount of fundamental societal and global change that took place and it's pace are perhaps unmatched. If we truly wanted to analyze how a nation that in 1946 was poised to become a truly liberal compassionate nation, turned out sixty years later to be the one of the most backward thinking nations in the industrial world, we need to look at a broad scope of reasons.  

But as Paul pointed, out our greatest challenge for the future might come when the American people in fact begin to come around (as I think they are beginning to) . Will we welcome them back into the fold, or hold against them their past sins. That is where our true test will come... hopefully we will past that test

by Duke1676 on 11/03/2005 02:24:04 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I Think We're In Agreement, Just Emphasizing (none / 1)
Different Things.

Now that you spell out your intentions explicitly, I find myself in 100% agreement.  It's just that you're coming at this from more of an historical/analytical direction, and I was reading more in the spirit of a political grand narrative, a sort of counter to the rightwing narrative of the 60s destroying America.  

Ideally, the Grand Narrative should have room in it to accomodate the interpolation of greater nuance and complexity, such as you point to.  But even if it can't do that without getting too diffuse, too complex or too long, this could serve as a thread in the Grand Narrative.

The problem is, only lies can have the simplicity that easily fits into grand narratives. The nature of the truth is always too messy for that.

Well, except for Ozymandius, perhaps.  And You, Andrew Marvell.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/03/2005 07:34:35 PM EST

[ Parent ]
sorry, I did use the phrase (none / 0)
personal accountability.  Thanks for catching me on that.  Such language is unlike me, so I couldn't imagine I'd used it.  Let's choose a different phrase and pretend I'd used that instead.

Like the admission of one's own complicity.  I'm not talking about retribution or public scorn or anything, just honesty and self-awareness by those who were manipulated.  It's the least they could do.  

My fear is without this, nothing's really changed because as Duke wrote, they were simply tired of being afraid which is entirely different from having the deep-seated ethical conversion that really can sustain long-term change into the future.  They need to be able to teach their kids and grandkids about how and why fear worked, not just shrug and say, "Yeah, we were afraid, everyone was."  In order to assure that such things will happen never again, the culprits, from the average schmuck to the highest official have to acknowledge their own complicity lest their descendents unwittingly repeat it.    

by weeping for brunnhilde on 11/03/2005 11:48:17 AM EST

[ Parent ]
but many have (none / 0)
They need to be able to teach their kids and grandkids about how and why fear worked, not just shrug and say, "Yeah, we were afraid, everyone was."  In order to assure that such things will happen never again

I am living proof as are my children.

as Duke wrote, they were simply tired of being afraid which is entirely different from having the deep-seated ethical conversion that really can sustain long-term change into the future

as I posted above, sometimes you've just got to give a guy a little literary license.

My parent's actual re-conversion was long and complex. Vietnam, assassination, riots, the peace movement, the civil rights movement, Watergate, the rise of the Moral Majority, women's rights, abortion and a myriad of other issues all played a part.  (not to mention four "hippie" children)  But in the end , of course it came down to ethical issues.  

That's why I warn not view the period through a single ideological prism.

by Duke1676 on 11/03/2005 02:54:47 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Sometimes The Mundane Leads To The Sublime (none / 1)
Good points. But sometimes it is just enough to grow weary of fear.  Sometimes that's all it takes, because once you turn your back on it, you are open to more transformative possibilities and processes.  

I'm not saying this is automatic.  Heavens no!  I'm as frustrated as anyone else with the glib excuses people use to get out of re-examining the evil they've been party too, if even entirely passively.  

But I am saying that sometimes the transformation comes about after a change of heart or mind that's not at all profound or dynamic in and of itself.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/03/2005 07:42:48 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Excellent, point well taken (none / 0)
Invoking fear as largely determinative of why people vote Republican absolves them from moral responsibility, in my view.  The implication is that they're hapless dupes of canny fearmongers.

So while fear is of course a factor, greed and selfishness are also factors, and ones that have nothing to do with the sort of primal fear of the shadows that the Republicans exploit as well.

Your argument is irrefutable. One cannot look at the era without seeing that there was culpability on the part of many based upon factors other than fear alone. I believe that the debate on the other site went astray due to the exclusivity of the arguments.

 I think that to try to view the events of any 60-year period of history through the prism of a single causation is impossible. I think that's where everyone was trying to go with his or her arguments on the other site, it just never seemed to get there.

by Duke1676 on 11/02/2005 03:41:08 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Great Article! (4.25 / 4)
This belongs on every editorial page in America!

Conservatives have succeded in large part not just because of their reliance on a politics of fear, but also because they've crafted simple narratives that get stuck in people's heads. These narratives serve to rationalize, naturalize, justify and "explain" the fear and the fear-based worldview it comes from.

Well, this is a simple narrative that we need to get stuck in people's heads. Plus, it has the added benefit of being true.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/01/2005 03:35:51 PM EST

It's interesting to note (5.00 / 3)
just how many current conservatives were the beneficiaries of the very programs of my parents generation they now despise. How many grew up in homes that were paid for with cheap GI bill mortgages. Very likely the first generation in their families history to be afforded such a luxury. How many were the first in their families' history to received  a collage education. Paid for with Gov't subsidized student loans. How many had parents who retired comfortably and weren't a huge financial burden to them due to government programs like social security and Medicare coupled with pension plans that "liberal" unions fought hard to get. The list goes on and on.

We need to bring that message home...day in and day out.

by Duke1676 on 11/01/2005 04:04:27 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Even More Than That--A Promising Research Project (4.66 / 3)
Here's a research project for ya.  This should be done by the DNC or at least co-ordinated by them.  How many GOP officeholders benefitted from liberal social programs?  How many members of Congress grew up in VHA houses, paid for with jobs also secured via the GI Bill?  How many went to college with federal assistance?  How many got federal assistance in other forms--agricultural price supports, for example?  And how many bought there homes with 20- or 30-year mortgages?  (Because before FDR, the longest most mortgages were was just 5 years.)

This is a huge aspect of what the politics of fear has covered up.  The Democrats aren't just the party of the disenfranchised and disposessed.  They're the party of everyone except the tipy-top 1%--if that.  (Certainly not Oprah Winfrey.  She wouldn't be there courtesy of Trent Lott.)  

A simple, factual report on how much GOP officeholders had benefited from Democratic social programs would be a very handy piece of political dynamite in next year's elections, it seems to me.  

On the one hand, you have an orgy of GOP corruption, on the other hand, you have decades of Democratic social spending programs that work for all Americans--and if you don't believe it, just ask the following GOP Senators, Congressmembers, Governors, State AGs, State Senators, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Sure the Dems will need something new to run on.  But whatever they chose will be spun like a pinwheel, we know that for a certainty.  What can't be spun is what's already been done--for the benefit of the same GOP bastards we're running against.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/01/2005 05:54:58 PM EST

[ Parent ]
excellent idea (none / 0)
To show the hypocrisy of their positions.

by Duke1676 on 11/01/2005 06:12:46 PM EST

[ Parent ]
But It's Not JUST The Hypocrisy (4.50 / 2)
The trouble with simply showing hypocrisy is that the GOP has grown very adept at taking any of their sins and protraying it as a general sin of "politicians."

The beauty of this particular hypocrisy is that Dems who are "guilty" of the same thing aren't being hypocrites at all. They're being appropriately true to the legacy that's benefited them as well as the vast majority of Americans.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/01/2005 07:13:43 PM EST

[ Parent ]
And: (none / 1)
Even the top 1% in some cases. Clarence Thomas was the beneficiary of Affirmative Action, the very program that he now despises.

Iraq War News and Comment

by Eternal Hope on 11/01/2005 06:47:22 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Yes, But (none / 0)
who said he's in the top 1%???

I'm thinking he's still got a ways to go to get there.  Just one more reason he's still so aggrieved.  

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/01/2005 07:10:37 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Oh, didn't you know? (4.50 / 2)
Republican's begin grooming their children for a life of conservative discomboobery, they begin at the tender age of 3 by getting their child a bunk bed.

The child innocently climbs into that bunk bed, cozy and snug.

Then the parents instruct the child to PULL that ladder up after them.

Training complete!

Political Cortex -- Brain Food for the Body Politic

by Tom Ball on 11/01/2005 04:27:11 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I love that analogy (none / 1)
It would make a great political add. The child pulling up the ladder behind him, perhaps with a bed full of toys and other goodies. It really sums up the underlying philosophy of the conservative movement. Spoiled selfish children.

by Duke1676 on 11/01/2005 06:18:17 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Good story...good point.... (none / 0)
...to offer one piece of advice:

At the heart, this is a personal story.  You bring us in through talking about your parents.  You can go further with that and give us some detail...where they married and lived...and where they move from and to...

Then, after their turn in attitude, site some specifics about the fear mongering that drove them over the edge.  

Then grab an example or two of today's fear mongering and how it is exhausing us.

The Albany Project. The best damned blog about New York State politics.

by NYBri on 11/01/2005 11:52:59 AM EST

Great job! (none / 0)
"a Government that had literally fed the starving, brought light into darkness, educated the ignorant, gave power to the powerless, and defeated unimaginable evil. After a few years, the GI Bill allowed them to move from the crowded city to a small house in the suburbs and start a family."

Oh, to once again have progressive, compassionate, intelligent, accountable leadership -- makes a great initial retort when the cons ask the inevitable question, "What have liberals ever done?"

Political Cortex -- Brain Food for the Body Politic

by Tom Ball on 11/01/2005 12:26:30 PM EST

Good stuff (none / 1)
Really good piece, Duke1676.  I could see you taping an interview with your parents that draws out this narrative.  It'd make a heck of a series of commericals, or something.  We have to redefine liberalism in this country, remind those who once embraced it what it really means, and incubate those connections in younger generations.

2008 Presidential Primaries. STARTING NOW

by Austin in PA on 11/02/2005 03:32:14 PM EST

A Lesson on the Politics of Fear | 34 comments (23 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden)
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