NEWS: The Politics of Fear

OH thats just great....

like I said in another post. who want to bet me 5 bucks that just before the election there will be some big fabricated terrorist THING.

I'm not sure if thinking about death is what caused the shift here. The respondents were not asked to think about their grandmother's funeral or what they want engraved on their own future tombstone. They were asked to think about their enemies, which is something else entirely.

Republicans are more reliably hawkish and aggressive against enemies than Democrats. At least that has been the case lately. So when people think about those who really do want to kill them, most instinctively gravitate toward candidates who want to fight rather than candidates who hesitate.

Not sure anyone needed a "study" to figure this out. Anti-war candidates lose elections in America. Kerry only has a prayer because he's sorta peacenicky and also sorta hawkish. If he were Dean or Kucinich he'd be toast.

I dunno. I find empirical studies like this can be useful in confirming (or refuting) stuff we "think" we know. An example I cite quite often was the research that showed how people considered "more attractive" do better in the job market. That seems like an "obvious" effect, but it was still worth testing for.

It's not just about Democrat vs. Republican either. The story points out how the investigators started off with three stylised candidates offering three different styles of campaign speech. It was the rhetorical styles that differed, not the party alliegance. People go for the rhetoric of reassurance (couched as counter-aggression), regardless of the competence or motives of the reassurer.

It's happening in my country too.

I'm a hawk. I don't need to be "reassured," and certainly not by a twit like George W. What bugs me about Kerry (but not Edwards) is his spineless Hamlet-ness when it comes to foriegn policy. I'm not a child who needs a daddy, I'm an adult who doesn't want to fuck around when it comes to dealing with enemies.

Would you describe Churchill's speech about promising only blood, sweat, toil, and tears in the language you used above? I wouldn't call that speech reassuring, but it's what needed to be said at that place and time in history.

[Edited on Aug 01, 2004 4:45PM]

From the CNN story:

Again, forget about Bush or Kerry as individuals.

I'd say that the "charismatic" speech described above falls quite clearly into the category of "reassuring".

I'd also say that as well as inspiring, Churchill's speech "reassured". The idea of people wanting a "strong" leader in times of difficulty -- the main advantage tha Bush has over Kerry still, and the main advantage my current prime minister has over his opposition counterpart -- is that there's reassurance offered in the fact that the leader is "strong" in the face of an outside challenge.

I mean, this is hardly rocket science, as you yourself pointed out. From the point of being Darwinian pack animals, we want our alpha males to keep us safe. That's a deep emotional need, and saying "I'm a hawk" is just putting a rationalised gloss on top of that need. For this need to be satisfied, we have to believe they'll be hard-asses when challenges face the tribe. That twit George W. still has that going on, despite his obvious twitishness.

A couple of things. I think that people are scarred of a new authority presiding over when they live or die, because we know the system. Atleast thats my thoughts on it. I'd like to see the same study done the next time a democrate is in office, see if my theory is correct. I'm also sick of two things. Democrats being labeled as pussies and democrats being pussies. Not all are, so fuck off with your label, and look at the big wars, the presidents who won them were fairly liberal, such as FDR. But man, and I say this as a liberal leaning person myself, liberals need to fucking get over it, dig their heels in and get some fucking work done. I'm really sick of dumb hippie liberal twat-bags running scared shitless every time a cop gets sick of said dumb hippie liberal twat-bags yelling at them and the cop moves in. Whatever happened to people during Sit-Ins taking a beating with a piece of wood, not moving, and fucking smiling about it?

I don't buy it.

The point of the study is not that a Repub happens to be in office, but that the country it tangibly under threat.

When thinking consciously about that threat, people happen to respond to different stimuli. Make them think about something else, their response changes.

That's what's being pointed out here. It's a very instinctive response being identified.

Thinking about Bush makes me want to kill myself.

So politics and death could be related I guess....

I think the problem is politicians convincing you that you have 'enemies'. The U.S. may be short on real friends, but certainly doesn't face many threats (especially not from the former Iraq, not that it matters now). I think the greatest irony is that the only possible (but exaggerated) threat you face is from terrorism, yet terrorists probably find it far easier to recruit when a guy like Bush is in office.

This is a great article...it seems lately that the whole Bush re-election campaign is based off of fear. I'm sure most voters will see that the GOP is an elitist, fear marketing machine.