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Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008
President Bush has used the politics of fear to sell his policies and stifle opponents. With events turning against him, will that strategy backfire?
Apr 9, 2004 | In millions of American homes last month, a small, dim image flickered repeatedly on television screens. An olive-skinned man, vaguely Arabic, turned toward the camera. Malice was plain in his dark eyes and hard expression. A few seconds later, a voice-over delivered the payload: "John Kerry: Wrong on taxes. Wrong on defense."
The image played only briefly in President George W. Bush's "100 Days" ad, and it was largely overshadowed by a far more controversial campaign spot that featured a flag-draped coffin being hauled away from the smoldering ruins of ground zero after Sept. 11. But "100 Days" was fraught with a high-voltage emotional charge of its own. The ad's message was straightforward: These are frightening times, and if you elect John Kerry, you will be even more vulnerable than you are now. The face of the anonymous terrorist was designed to appeal to one primal, irreducible emotion: fear.
Like the now-infamous Willie Horton ad that helped sink Michael Dukakis, the Bush ad makes a visceral appeal to voter insecurity -- and such fear-mongering is certain to play a central theme in his reelection campaign over the next seven months. With the economy staggering and voters concerned about a hemorrhage of jobs, with healthcare costs soaring and corporate crime at epidemic levels, Bush is emphasizing the one issue where his poll numbers have shown him to be strongest: national security. The recent bombings in Spain, a rising tide of violence and political instability in Iraq, and the devastating attack on Bush security policy by former counterterrorism director Richard Clarke have damaged Bush's credibility even on that issue. Nonetheless, Bush's political strategists are certain to keep playing up the security risks Americans face, and why his leadership is necessary to confront them.
Indeed, since Sept. 11th, fear has been the animating principle of nearly all of Bush's policies. The administration has invoked terrifying specters -- biological and chemical weapons rained from crop dusters or spewed into subway systems, a "dirty bomb" radiating entire downtown areas, a nuclear "mushroom cloud" rising over an American city -- to justify everything from the USA PATRIOT Act to racial profiling to the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" to the invasion of Iraq.
Of course, 9/11 was a catastrophic event, and no president could afford simply to ignore it. The attacks injected a new shiver of insecurity into American life; the genuine threat of terrorism shadows us in airports and office towers, in subways and stadiums. An airplane rumbling overhead is no longer benign white noise. But some observers argue that Bush and his political strategists, rather than helping Americans overcome the fear inspired by the terrorist attacks, have exploited that fear to drum up support for controversial policies, stifle dissent and help Bush win reelection.
"I think they deliberately emphasize 9/11, and have turned post-9/11 fear into a political weapon," says Robert Lifton, a Harvard psychiatrist whose books have explored the nexus of political power, cult violence and mass trauma. "They assert that the absence of terrorist activity is due to their show of strength, but at the same time, they feel the need to mobilize fear and emphasize the threat in order to sustain their image as the great protectors. Both elements are part of the same constellation of manipulation. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, while hardly political allies, have been profoundly valuable to the administration in manipulating the public to support its policies."
If a majority of Americans have bought the image of Bush as a strong wartime leader, they're starting to watch that image crack apart, on both the 9/11 and Iraq fronts. Richard Clarke's charges had already damaged Bush's credibility on 9/11, and Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission on Thursday did little to reassure the nation that the Bush White House had made al-Qaida a top priority before 9/11. Iraq is potentially even more damaging to Bush. The president used fear -- hyping Saddam's ties to al-Qaida and his supposed weapons of mass destruction -- to convince a doubtful nation that invading Iraq was necessary to protect America. But as the military and political situation there spirals out of control, Bush's war appears more and more to have unleashed the very type of violent Islamic fundamentalism the administration pledged it would defeat by removing Saddam. Ironically, a war sold by pumping up terrifying claims (which turned out to be untrue) may now leave Americans with much more to fear.
While Bush's Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry, has warily avoided attacking Bush too strongly on Iraq, former Vice President Gore has taken the gloves off. "The administration did not hesitate to heighten and distort public fear of terrorism after 9/11, to create a political case for attacking Iraq," Gore charged in a speech at New School University in February. Gore also warned of the geopolitical isolation the U.S. now appears to be confronting as Spain and other members of the coalition turn unwilling, and as Iraq teeters on the brink of chaos. "At the level of our relations with the rest of the world, the administration has willingly traded in respect for the United States in favor of fear. That is the real meaning of 'shock and awe.'" In a similar vein, a number of Bush critics have cited a famous line uttered by the sociopathic Roman emperor Caligula, "Oderint dum metuant" (Let them hate as long as they fear), as summing up the Bush administration's entire approach to the world.
But if Bush's I-will-protect-you image is taking some heavy hits right now, it's highly unlikely that he will change his strategy of appealing to fear while simultaneously presenting himself as a strong, steady leader. It has been his political trump card from the beginning -- and he doesn't really have any other options.
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