John McCain's "Two Americas"

John Edwards made famous the theme of "two Americas" on the campaign trail this year: One America consists of the well-off and the prosperous, while the other America falls behind each day under the strains of an economy that rewards wealth and punishes work. John McCain is working his own "two America" shtick lately, but it is fundamentally different than the one Edwards made famous.

For John McCain there are also "two Americas." One America consists of a nation of adventurers and salt-of-the-earth frontier people who tamed a wilderness, moved rivers, built canals and constructed the transcontinental railroad. They are a strong people, hearty individualists all, who invented the gramophone and the aeroplane, and who pulled themselves up from their own bootstraps out of the Great Depression. It is an America that defeated fascism and Japanese Imperialism and built the world's largest middle class. It is an America of courageous, innovative people who put a human being on the moon and won the Cold War, selflessly vanquishing for the world's people the totalitarian Soviet Union. In this America we see a people whose creativity knows no bounds and brought forth the microchip revolution, the personal computer, and the Internet. This America is a nation that looks beyond its own selfish interests to provide help and assistance to people all over the world who are less fortunate and in need.

But for McCain there is also another America:

This America is a nation of people who should wake up each morning thankful they have not yet been killed or maimed by evildoers and terrorists. This is an America paralyzed by 19 fanatics with box cutters who hijacked four commercial airliners. It is an America of people cowering in their homes and sealing themselves inside with duct tape and plastic sheeting. It is an America where people fear each day and fear each other and dread what terrible things the evildoers and terrorists must be plotting. It is an America with color-coded terror scales alerting us to just how terrified we should be on any given day. It is a weak and hapless nation that must torture prisoners, toss out the Geneva Conventions, suspend habeas corpus, spy on its own citizens, purge its websites, and be afraid -- be very afraid -- of everything in the world we do not understand including gay people and immigrants. McCain's other America shivers in its collective boots from the specter of Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Muslims and brown people in general. Mainly, McCain's other vision for America just tells people to be scared all the time. Be afraid of your own shadows; be afraid to negotiate or even talk with our enemies; be afraid to honor treaties like Kyoto; be afraid to innovate or move forward on global climate change. Be paralyzed through the sheer terror of it all. And vote for McCain because, like George W. Bush, he "will keep you safe!"

So which is it John McCain? Do we live in the America of strong people able to move confidently forward into the future and take on the complex problems we face? Or is it the other America of weaklings and knaves who cower in their homes watching Fox News and awaiting the next big terrorist attack?

Comments

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile

It's interesting I just got done watching a 2004 documentary: "The Goebbels Experiment" and he used the "my friends" refrain a lot, and in the mid-1930s he was saying that they want to save the "peace" in Europe.

[cktirumalai]

John Edwards did indeed call attention to the two Americas but some of the credit must go to a book that was once very well known: Michael Harrington's "The Other America: Poverty in the United States" (1962). Harrington was a socialist.

[DLSprague]

Can I quote the wise old sage from Oingo Boingo?
"Hey neighbor let me give you some advice
The russians are about to pulverize us
In our sleep tonight
That is if the crazy arabs
Or the riots don"t get us first...
There"s nothing to fear nothing to fear
There"s nothing to fear nothing to fear
There"s nothing to fear (but fear itself)
There"s nothing to fear (but fear itself)
And the temperature"s starting to drop now
The temperature"s starting to drop now
The temperature"s starting to drop now ...."

[aleco]

Outstanding post, Mr. Palermo. You have brilliantly put everything in perspective. The choices Americans will make in November have never been made so clear. Thank you.

[altohone]

The first is for those already supporting him... a feel-good message. (never mind that those with pioneering vision would know better)

The second is for those who might consider his opponent... planting seeds of doom in the garden of hope.


McSame clearly lacks a message to appeal to non-wingnuts, so his only strategy is to scare enough of them to keep them from voting for Obama.

Somehow, I doubt negativity will come across as an appealing campaign theme.

[BADEN]

Depends on who your corporate backers are getting the most money from.

Let's face it - in a McCainWorld, War makes big bucks for Daddy Warbucks.

"It replenishes the expendable stock of ammunition"

It creates NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES....

Be afraid...be very afraid...."AND BUY OUR VERY MAGICAL PLASTIC AND DUCT TAPE!"

[Henry]

McCain is not going to "surrender" in Iraq. There is, however, nobody to surrender to in Iraq. The tired old harangue of military imperialism given the pep-rally surfeits of honor and victory. Yet...he cannot even define the enemy. Is it Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda, the PKK, or is there some splinter group of the Shining Path? Can he admit that the entire Bush years were a "give -away" to Iran in the geo stability of the area? Doubtful. It is time to get the short little Navy man to comment on the Powell Doctrine and think out loud a bit about where these boys went wrong! There is a whole lot of military history for them to draw on.

[Bobzmcishl]

I've often pondered that same question as we John Q. Citizen's are accused of trading liberty for security. I don't ever remember voting for that, nor do I recall trembling in fear ever since 9/11. No do any of my neighbors tremble in fear. So what is going on here? Another manufactured excuse for our elected leaders to conjure up a reason to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and to treat the entire Middle East except Israel as one big terrorist country intent on overthrowing the United States of America. There is just a huge disconnect between what average American's believe and what our elected leaders say we believe. Our media, electronic and print have gone along with this charade for some unknown reason other than their corporate masters want to perpetrate this right wing view of our world. Hopefully we can rid ourselves of this thinking come next November and get back to the America we know and love.