Republicans Use Fear to Win

Halloween is upon us, and there's a spooky mist hanging in the air. As the moon rises, the mist suddenly parts, revealing an old white haired man standing between you and the gates to The White House. "Obama will raise your taxes!" he screams. "He's not one of us!" he cackles. His ghouls and goblins from every corner of the new Republican party howl "He's a Muslim! He pals around with terrorists! He's a Socialist!" like a bunch of dancing, mindless Michael Jackson's "Thriller" zombies.

Then there are the calls. Just like a scene from "Nightmare On Elm Street" Freddy calls at dinner time for McCain, The RNC, or some statewide or local Republican candidate; warning us about Obama's scary connections to one person or another, claiming he'll take our guns away, kills babies, and is solely responsible for the U.S. financial crisis. When he hangs up, Freddy calls back again; claiming Democrats are Godless, gay Islamic terrorist commie sympathizers, who want our country to end up like Canada, or worse--Illinois!

Then the election "secret agents" show up like a scene from "The Matrix" at the polls! They are everywhere, reading people's license plates, checking their I.D.'s, ticketing and booting cars, carting students away on outstanding parking tickets right before they cancel their student loans, tax stimulus check, and food stamps!

Just when you think The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse are appearing to take us to The Rapture, a Blackhawk helicopter from the Alaska Air National Guard appears with The Wicked Porno Librarian Witch of the North aboard; outfitted with a high powered hunting rifle with laser scope. Like a scene from "Wicked" she launches into the closing number, mumbles something about oil revenues and watching Russia while taking shots at Ted Stevens in a Polar Bear outfit; suddenly tossing Old Man McCain right out the window into the arms of Joe The Plumber!

You know how the story ends. Joe The Plumber is the hero of the day, and everyone lives happily ever after! (Except Bristol and her strapping buck Levi; both over it, who roll their eyes and duck out the side door of the theatre, dragging Piper and Trig in tow. After all, Mom is a whackjob. Grampy McCain's own people said so!)

If you think this is the most bizarre script you've ever read...stop right now and think about it. Everything here has happened, been said by a press aide, uttered by a member of the punditry, or said by a politician or operative; or actually has occurred...for the most part.

Doing everything they can to suppress the Democratic vote, the youth vote, and anyone who may have some Hope or Change on their minds; they have used all of these tactics to try to win through fear, division, and hatred. After all, the Hopers and Changers might be gay, black, latino, jewish, liberal, moderate, smart, dumb, creative, poor, unemployed, or just plain tired of all of it.

We need to commit to the idea that "they" must not succeed this time. People are scared to the bejeezus already, and the people who are slinging this schlock are counting on it to keep their power. It is how "they" stay in power. It is the way "they" have won in the past, recalling the ghosts of Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater, Joe McCarthy, Jesse Helms, and every other divider and hater along the way. This time we need to realize it is all just a big negative, psychotic, divisive TV show; created to keep us from getting off our asses and demanding that our votes count no matter what!

It has been a long 8 years, and this week saw the politics of division pushed to the absolute limit of absurdity in order to make people scared to choose real change. We must not allow it to go on any longer. Now it must stop. Here it must end. Tuesday, this seriously bad "B movie" must wrap production.

Follow Scott Foval on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ScottsBigMouth

Comments

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

It's been a long twenty years. This mess really started with Ronald Reagan. It only got worse with Dubbaya.

[donndublin]

What about the overt fearing mongering by Democratic operative James Carville, and liberal journalists Tom Sullivan, Ali Fatimah among others, who predict (or threaten) race riots if Obama loses? Do you call that devine wisdom?

[scottsbigmouth]

Actually, such supposed fear mongering was nothing of the sort. Chicago Police Department, the U.S. Secret Service, and even the U.S. Department of Defense all made preparations for race riots prior to election day. There was an entire division of the 82nd Airborne put on alert 3 weeks prior to and during the election just in case. Anyone who was in Chicago was holding their breath about the real possibility that anarchy could break out if Obama had not been announced the victor in the Presidential race. Check your facts, dude...you'll find out that Carville, Sullivan, and Fatimah were not fear mongering or threatening...they were reporting the facts on the ground, and discussing the issue in a real and sober way. It just looked like fear mongering to those who were asleep like a bunch of sheep, not believing the truth that the politics of division and hate brought us to the brink of our own country's self destruction.

Scott Foval
ScottsBigMouth.com
[e-mail]

[knowBuddhaU]

I call it *myth-jacking*, our upgraded and updated method for manufacturing consent, to jack to hell whole nations at a time—or just one voting bloc—and then stick them with the bill.

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” Hermann Goering,
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/25/body_of_war_new_doc_tells

"We imported fascism"-- Gore Vidal

NAOMI KLEIN: "And so, the Chicago Boys were born. And it was considered a success, and the Ford Foundation got in on the funding. And hundreds and hundreds of Latin American students, on full scholarships, came to the University of Chicago in the 1950s and ’60s to study here to try to engage in what Juan Gabriel Valdes, Chile’s foreign minister after the dictatorship finally ended, described as a project of deliberate ideological transfer, taking these extreme-right ideas, that were seen as marginal even in the United States, and transplanting them to Latin America. That was his phrase--that is his phrase." http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/6/naomi_klein

Doesn't this describe the GOP strategy perfectly, right up to this very minute, when Sam Wurzelbacher is questioning Obama's patriotism?

http://www.eandppub.com/2008/11/mccains-surroga.html

[knowBuddhaU]

I forgot to mention RJ Eskow's great summary of the psychophysiology of fear-mongering.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/100-million-suspects_b_139689.html

He makes the greatest point of the campaign: their one-and-only strategy ain't working like the charm it used to, and they have no Plan B.

Case in point: Liddy Dole's "godless ad" is blowing up in her face.
http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/liddy-doles-godless-americans-ad-is.html