The Chicken Little Election
The 2014 election strategy for Republicans: fear. Via First Read:
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Less than a month out before November’s midterm elections, the Republican Party has had a simple message on the campaign trail and in TV ads: fear. “Republicans have made questions of how safe we are — from disease, terrorism or something unspoken and perhaps more ominous — central in their attacks against Democrats. Their message is decidedly grim: President Obama and the Democratic Party run a government that is so fundamentally broken it cannot offer its people the most basic protection from harm,” as the New York Times puts it. We’ve written over the last couple of weeks that the Secret Service and Ebola stories touch on the loss of faith in institutions (to protect the president, to keep scary diseases from our shores). But these advertisements we’re seeing …go well beyond faith in institutions or government competence. They’re about fear. And frankly, they come when there’s no evidence of ISIS coming across the border and when (remarkably) there’s still been just one confirmed case of Ebola in the United States. Now we understand why Republicans are picking up this theme — they want to nationalize the election, and they have every incentive to.[su_csky_ad]
Obewon October 11th, 2014 at 8:14 am
Conservatives have a larger ‘fear center’ in their brain at the expense of tinier hope and optimism glands. Many globally repeated peer-reviewed studies confirm that conservatives’ brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other “primitive” emotions. At the same time, conservatives’ brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate — the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/conservatives-fear-center-brain/
2) Conservatives Big on Fear, Brain Study Finds MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that self-described conservative students had a larger amygdala than liberals. The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure deep in the brain that is active during states of fear and anxiety. Liberals had more gray matter at least in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that helps people cope with complexity. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201104/conservatives-big-fear-brain-study-finds
3) Conservatives most afraid 2014 update http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/biology-ideology-john-hibbing-negativity-bias
Mike Butkus Jr. October 11th, 2014 at 11:18 am
Thanks now I’m jonesin for some almonds
OldLefty October 11th, 2014 at 8:30 am
With the technology available, I’m always shocked that anyone even sees political ads.
That being said, my disappointment comes from the fact that the worst behavior is rewarded in mid term elections.
That, to use a few analogies, a considerable number of people are willing to see Bob Ewell as “a strong leader” and Atticus Finch as “weak”.
When we come to a point where the one who has no answer but to bend down, scoop up a handful of mud and throw it at their opponent wins, because “Americans don’t want a leader with mud on him”, while back in the day that everyone over 40 yearn for, the mud slinger would doom himself as immature and reckless.
When those who see our recent history of having Congressional votes that came come down between 55 -45, or 45 – 55, as compromise and thus weakness, and NOW feel that the strategy to combat a president’s strength which lay in willingness to compromise for the sake of unity should be to dig in their heels, and have every Republican vote be 100% “Nay”, just to “He [McConnell] wanted everyone to hold the fort. All he cared about was making sure Obama could never have a clean victory.” , then blame the president for being “divisive”, we have lost much.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats
OldLefty October 11th, 2014 at 8:33 am
Remember, “Visceral giving”? GOP Fundraising Strategy: Fear, Ego
and Reactionary Politics
A confidential GOP presentation obtained by POLITICO says it all when it comes
to Republican political strategy. Nothing we didn’t already know – it’s just particularly disturbing to see it summed up so thoroughly in a garish heart-shaped flow chart.
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”
Exclusive: RNC document
mocks donors, plays on ‘fear’ By: Ben Smith March 3, 2010 04:23 PM EDT
William October 11th, 2014 at 8:47 am
Their strategy is simple. “Vote for us or Isis, and Ebola will get you”.
On the bright side.
Dwendt44 October 11th, 2014 at 12:20 pm
But only when it’s convenient.
arc99 October 11th, 2014 at 10:05 am
Right wingers are most skilled at playing the victim. There is one location in all of South Dakota where a woman can obtain an abortion. There are now only eight locations available in all of Texas. In both those states, you can purchase a firearm at dozens if not hundreds of locations. But to hear right wingers tell it, 2nd amendment rights are “under attack”.
They whine about not feeling safe but they cheer when the police kill unarmed black men. How safe do you think the families of those men feel?
Of course we should not forget the happy dance they did when key provisions of the Voting Rights Act were struck down by the Supreme Court using a rationale that appears nowhere in the 15th amendment.
It is the classic case of projection. Right wingers warn of infringement on our rights. As it turns out, they are the biggest culprits and primary threat to our rights.
uzza October 11th, 2014 at 11:14 am
Little / Scrooge 2016 !
Ol Blue October 11th, 2014 at 2:18 pm
PBO kept us safe. Dubya did not.
rick dalton October 12th, 2014 at 8:18 pm
That funny how many attacks been made here at home since Obama became president Zero .How many on the republican watch 9/11 over 3000 dead so who is this nation not safe under?