The fear factor

By Michael J. Smith on Wednesday July 11, 2012 08:16 PM

It gets worse every day. An email correspondent writes:

Dems must start using the most effective human motivator FEAR to ensure a Nov landslide.
Where has my man been for the last forty years or so? In fact the Dems are a one-trick pony, and this is the pony's one trick: No matter what horrors we commit, the Republicans will do worse! Aiiee! Cthulhu!

It's not difficult to see the inductive implications of accepting this argument: Both D's and R's will get worse, cycle after cycle, and every time the polls open, Dembots will hold their proverbial noses -- atrophied organs, surely, after all these decades of abuse -- and vote for a progressively(*) worse candidate, thus contributing their widow's mite to the general worsening of the world.

This is part of the unmanliness of Dem fans, alluded to in an earlier post. Their politics is all about cultivating fear in themselves and communicating it to others.

-------------

(*) Little pun there on the word 'progressive'. In case anybody missed it.

Comments (19)

MJS, I'm gonna be honest with you. I've stopped paying attention to the election noise. I've turned off the cable channels, I'm skipping over the politics sections on all the newsie sites, I'm over it now. Before it's over, I'm over it.

I just don't give a shit. You and I both know this election is meaningless.

So relax, go sail your boat, I'm going camping myself, and forget about it. It's a psychic vampire sucking the energy out of you.

/sigh...

I know, I know... some correspondent such as the one you mention will eventually throw that shit in your face and you'll find yourself dealing with it again. Deep breaths.

Sometimes I find myself awake at night with worries about the world and the direction we're headed but in the end I find that just concentrating on the night sounds, the sound of my breathing, and thinking about those simple joys that are not yet stolen from us helps me make it back to blessed sleep.

And like the Beatles said, whatever gets you through the night is alright.

sk:

'Innere Emigration' für alle!

sk:

Perhaps more relevant usage of "inner emigration" i.e. withdrawing into a private sphere, than what was debated in Germany a lifetime ago.

par4:

Did you remind this clown that the Dems had landslide victories in 06 and 08?

Chomskyzinn:

I''m with Drunk. And I'm finding most people I know are. Most conversations about this "election," even among my most politically interested friends, are exercises in you going through the motions, mouthing a few words, devoid of enthusiasm or passion. A giant shrug. As it should be.

Happily, I cant think of a single politically minded person I know urging any action of any kind. It's most: Obie, Mitt....whatever.

Chomskyzinn:

The best conversation I DID have recently was with a building workers union guy last night, who explained to me how democracy is a sham, most people don't even think voting matters, and Fidel and Hugo are awesome and smeared by US propaganda.

MJS:

DP, I certainly don't follow it on the 'news' -- though every so often, in a doctor's waiting room, say, I may pick up a day-old copy of the Times. But I still can't escape it. There are people cheerleading for Obromney and Chicken-Littling about Rombama on my college alumni mailing list, and even among my tiny circle of
Face-buchers (a nonce coinage, analogous to Yeshiva-bucher).

op:

oh great spirits
there is still plenty of mole tunneling to do
under our corporate titans

the spirit subfloors the minds of the thralled joblings can be roused
the extraction mechanisms undermined

op:


i'm happy to admit

mitt really galls me

in fact despite any rational argument that might cull me from a tirade against him

if the ever so fragmented benighted befuddled
amerikan voting minority in its plurality elects this vulture...
i think of my dear hero hunter t blowing his brains out in early 05
i doubt the re election of chief little george had nothing to do with it
and God knows in my books
kerry was far far worse then barry

op:

'Innere Emigration' für alle!

like a room of my own


surely a venality we bourgeois can afford

but other then that ....

okay okay
i agree
any clear and present station
in the great human passion play
deserves respect

even as one hopefully
drives right past at 80 mph

op:

"Obie, Mitt....whatever"


an admirable stoicism that

but if it comes easily to u

if its ...whats that hedonic ultimo state

ataraxia ?

in that case

i have my questions

op:

"vote for a progressively(*) worse candidate"


excellent
lesser evil but progresively worse

chomskyzinn:

"if the ever so fragmented benighted befuddled
amerikan voting minority in its plurality elects this vulture..."

I actually agree with this sentiment, op. There is indeed something particularly revolting and also dispiriting about white working class voters flocking to this vulture....rather than, say, going SMBIVA. Not that Obie's re-election would restore my faith in humanity. But to think of Joe Lunchpail actually going down to the polls and pulling the lever for a hedge-fund billionaire vulture capitalist....

My "Obie, Mitt, whatever" remark reflected more what I'm hearing from my pwog amigos.

This line of "argument" is rather ironic given the popular Dem trope about the GOP standing for nothing but fear http://vastleft.blogspot.com/2011/08/american-extremists-fear-itself.html

" But I still can't escape it. There are people cheerleading for Obromney and Chicken-Littling about Rombama on my college alumni mailing list, and even among my tiny circle of
Face-buchers (a nonce coinage, analogous to Yeshiva-bucher)."

Understood... like I said, it's gonna get thrown in your face no matter what you do.

It's gonna be a long hot summer.

Drunk Pundit sez on 07.11.12 @22:41:
And like the Beatles said, whatever gets you through the night is alright.

Actually, that was off a John Lennon solo album, but, yeah.

But, seriously, Drunken One, I'm pretty much with you on your post at the top of the thread. I don't give a shit about this "election" campaign in the sense that it's like watching a bland cookie-cutter three-camera laugh-track sitcom with lines delivered with an inflection that suggests they're funny but aren't, but are nonetheless followed by a quick burst of laugh track (a.k.a. the reactions of TV pundits).

Still, I do give a shit in the sense that both candidates are guaranteed to utter rock-stupid banalities that guarantee not only a long, hot summer but -- at least for me, as a satirist -- a long, hot, hilarious summer. Take, for instance, Obomney and Rombama's recent pissfight over who's sent more jobs overseas. Christ, man, it's like watching an old vaudeville routine.

Yeah, sure, that shit's going to be thrown in my face, but the "election" of '00 taught me to scrape it off and throw it back even harder. I plan on getting a measure of cheap fun from this campaign by watching the reactions of Liberals when I poke my metaphorical stick at them through the bars of their allegorical cages.

op:

test

Mike, I do look forward to seeing some of your toons.

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