President Bush cannot point to great successes in Iraq. None of the public rationales given for the invasion (huge WMD arsenals, an al Qaeda connection, an implied 9/11 connection, etc) have turned out to be true, we have earned the hatred of the world, and American soldiers are dying daily for no apparent purpose.
He cannot point to great successes in the war against al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, the group is still planning and carrying out terrorist attacks, it’s still active in Afghanistan because Bush pulled American troops away from the hunt to go fight in Iraq, and new recruits are signing up because of the Iraq invasion.
He cannot point to great successes with the economy. The nation is still millions of jobs down from 2000, newly-created jobs pay so little that workers can barely afford life’s necessities (if they’re lucky), bankruptcies and foreclosures are at an all-time high, and a sizable budget surplus has been frittered away, leaving us with a gigantic deficit.
With no real accomplishments to tout, the Republicans have no choice but to fall back on that time-tested standby, fear. If you can’t convince someone to vote for your guy because he’s genuinely the better choice for the job, then you’ve got to scare the pants off them. Tell people that if they don’t vote for your candidate, evil monsters will come in the middle of the night and eat their children.
While that is not exactly the revised Bush sales pitch, there is little doubt that the Republicans have turned to the politics of fear to win this election. All you have to do is listen to the rhetoric that dominates a typical Bush stump speech:
“Certain regimes, often with ties to terrorist groups, seek the ultimate weapons as a shortcut to influence... They seek weapons of mass destruction to kill Americans on an even greater scale... It’s not possible to guarantee perfect security in our vast, free nation... We removed a declared enemy of America, who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder, and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take... Terrorists planned attacks, with little fear of discovery or reckoning... We remain a nation at risk, directly threatened by an enemy that plots in secret to cause terrible harm and grief...”Not to be outdone, Vice President Cheney turns up the fear volume in his speeches:
“Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness... The leader who sits in the Oval Office will set the course for the war on terror... Today’s enemies send trained killers to live among us and attack civilians from within our own borders. They strike us not with tanks, but by taking the tools of everyday life – aircraft, trucks and cars – and turning them into weapons to kill innocent men, women and children... We face a threat today unlike any our nation has ever known... Thousands of terrorists remain at large, and they are intent on gaining access to increasingly powerful weapons... We cannot allow men like those who recently beheaded American and Korean hostages to acquire the tools that will allow them to kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in a few minutes... Terrorists remain determined and dangerous... More violence can be expected in the days and weeks ahead... Nearly three years now have passed without another attack on our soil, yet the terrorist threat to America remains...”The implication is clear: vote Republican and stay safe, or vote for the other guy and – well, it’s been nice knowing you. And yet Bush and Cheney look positively restrained next to some other Republicans. An outfit called the Authentic GOP sells buttons and T-shirts proclaiming, “10 Out of 10 Terrorists Agree: Anybody But Bush.”
The reality, as much as the GOP may hate to admit it, is that the Bush Administration has bungled the War on Terror. By abandoning the hunt for bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders, by bogging our military down in the Iraq quagmire and by handing al Qaeda a gold-plated recruiting poster, Bush has ensured that anti-American terrorism is not going anywhere. (The comic strip Doonesbury did a satirical but scarily insightful take on this.)
By now, you’re probably at the window waiting for a bomb-laden jetliner to crash into your house, and you can’t wait until your absentee ballot arrives so you can vote for Bush. But let us now take a look at what the Democratic candidates are saying. To nobody’s surprise, they have a very different take on the world situation. In his speeches, Senator John Kerry says:
“I will be a president who truly is a uniter, not one who seeks to divide our nation by race, riches or any other label... Making life better for the working poor is part of my vision for a stronger America... We have the means to give all our children a first-rate education... We can do better, and we will... Values mean creating opportunity and fighting for good paying jobs that let American families actually get ahead... Health care is a right for all Americans... In our Administration, we’ll never go to war because we want to; we’ll only go to war because we have to... What we are fighting for is an America where all of us truly are in the same boat...”
Senator John Edwards is equally upbeat:
“I am speaking to you today for one simple reason: I love my country... I believe that every American deserves the same chance that I had no matter where they live, who their family is or what the color of their skin... Middle-class families will be able to rest assured that [we] will look out for their interests, restore corporate responsibility, and put our economy back in line with our values... [We] will keep [America] safe and build a strong military, and lead strong alliances, so that young Americans are never put in harm’s way because we needlessly decided to go it alone... As president, [Kerry] will lead this world, not bully it... These are the kind of values we need in a President – somebody who has strength, courage and determination and will never leave any American behind...”But wait a minute! Does that mean the Democratic ticket is made up of America-hating terrorist-lovers who want us to get rid of our military and watch helplessly as terrorists blow up Disney World and throw a burqa over the Statue of Liberty? Of course not. Nobody is seriously saying that we should not defend ourselves, nor that we should not be vigilant.
But there is a very large difference between seeing the world as one big threat requiring us to attack recklessly anyone who might become a problem someday, and seeing it as a possibility for a brighter future in which nations band together to defeat a common enemy.
One campaign is appealing to your hopes.
The other is playing to your fears.
The choice is yours.
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