“Fear Itself”
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”- FDR’s first inaugural address
Historian Rick Perlstein has documented in “Nixonland,” that American voters turned to the right in 1966, when Democrats suffered major setbacks in Congress and Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California.
According to Perlstein the cause of that turn to the right was white fear of urban disorder and the fear that fair housing laws would let dangerous blacks move into white neighborhoods. “Law and order” became the rallying cry of right-wing politicians like Nixon, who rode that fear factor into the White House. Fortunately, during the Clinton years, the wave of urban violence receded and with it the ability of Republicans to exploit racial fears.
For decades, Republican politicians succeeded in convincing many voters that government spending on welfare was unacceptable. They insisted that bureaucrats were taking workers’ hard-earned money and giving it to welfare queens. Again, there was definitely a racial element to their argument.
The political discourse about welfare was vastly disproportionate to the actual expense of Aid to Families With Dependent Children, but Clinton’s reforms took that issue off the table. Today, racial divisiveness, has become much less important in American politics, because Clinton ended welfare as we knew it.
The fear factor raised its ugly head again after 9/11, when Karl Rove accusing liberals of being soft on terrorism. Rove sounded like Nixon’s, disgraced vice president Spiro Agnew, who accused liberals of being soft on crime.
In “Superpatriotism”, Michael Parent’s points out: “Once fear takes hold, evidence becomes largely irrelevant.” Should Obama win in November, it will symbolize a great change in American politics, because racial polarization used to be the dominating force. For now, the question remains, are we still paralyzed by fear?
Historian Rick Perlstein has documented in “Nixonland,” that American voters turned to the right in 1966, when Democrats suffered major setbacks in Congress and Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California.
According to Perlstein the cause of that turn to the right was white fear of urban disorder and the fear that fair housing laws would let dangerous blacks move into white neighborhoods. “Law and order” became the rallying cry of right-wing politicians like Nixon, who rode that fear factor into the White House. Fortunately, during the Clinton years, the wave of urban violence receded and with it the ability of Republicans to exploit racial fears.
For decades, Republican politicians succeeded in convincing many voters that government spending on welfare was unacceptable. They insisted that bureaucrats were taking workers’ hard-earned money and giving it to welfare queens. Again, there was definitely a racial element to their argument.
The political discourse about welfare was vastly disproportionate to the actual expense of Aid to Families With Dependent Children, but Clinton’s reforms took that issue off the table. Today, racial divisiveness, has become much less important in American politics, because Clinton ended welfare as we knew it.
The fear factor raised its ugly head again after 9/11, when Karl Rove accusing liberals of being soft on terrorism. Rove sounded like Nixon’s, disgraced vice president Spiro Agnew, who accused liberals of being soft on crime.
In “Superpatriotism”, Michael Parent’s points out: “Once fear takes hold, evidence becomes largely irrelevant.” Should Obama win in November, it will symbolize a great change in American politics, because racial polarization used to be the dominating force. For now, the question remains, are we still paralyzed by fear?
posted by Jim O'Leary | 1:06 AM
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