Don't Forget the Fear Mongering

I've noticed there's something that seems to be missing from the national discussion of violent rhetoric. The focus seems to be on the violent imagery as typified in Palin placing bulls-eyes over candidates districts or Angle saying the people may need "second amendment remedies." But the violent imagery is only half of the problem. The other key element is the turning your political opponent into a threat. The violent imagery is dangerous because it is taking place in an environment where the audience has been told that Candidate X is coming to get them and that they need to be stopped. It's a two-part strategy--first you define the problem (the president is a foreign-born friend of terrorists who has illegally overthrown the government with the intent of taking away all of our freedoms, forcing his scary religion on us, and make us all communist. Or maybe socialists. Or Nazis. Oh, and he wants to kill your grandma.) Second, once you define the problem, you tell people how to solve the problem: which is increasingly violent rhetoric that we need to get them before they get us.

Fear Mongering + Violent Rhetoric = Not Good

We can't forget the fear mongering component. A lot of defensive people on the right point out that violent words and phrases are everywhere in our language. Yes, they are. However, when we normally talk about "targeting" a district, the phrase doesn't convey any sort of threat because it's in the context of where somebody needs to target their advertising budget. When Sarah Palin says we need to target certain districts, the message is coming from the same person who previously warned the listener that Obama is fishy, that we don't know enough about him, that he pals around with terrorists, that he wants to form death panels. After you've said all of that (to an audience that seems to buy every word of it) it's very dangerous to start drawing bulls-eyes.

I saw somebody on Facebook who was pointing out that the left was hypocritical for saying we need to watch the rhetoric because they used to have "Fuck Bush" bumper stickers. That's not hypocracy. I would welcome and encourage the right to go out and make "Fuck Obama" bumper stickers. The problem isn't about expressing dissent or anger. The problem is that it's escalated to fear mongering.

The defensive people on the right have been quick to point out that you can't tailor your language so that it doesn't get misinterpreted by a mad man. That's absolutely true. It would be impossible to do that and I wouldn't want anybody to try. But the line that should not be crossed is the one that separates trying to get your audience to care about your issues and trying to make your audience afraid that there is an imminent threat against them. When you cross that line, you are chumming shark-infested waters. Some of those madmen are of your own creation.