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We have all railed against the politics of negatitivy. Here in Houston, I have watched people like Sekula-Gibbs, Senator Cornyn and Senator Hutchison and more anciently, Dr. Steven Hotze, an old classmate of mine play this card over and over. There are many others. Indeed, almost every Republican poltician I know has used or passively benefited from playing the fear card, be against gays or immmigrants or black criminals, ad infintum.
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Crossposted at
Texas Kaos.
About two weeks ago, there was this bit in the Houston Chronicle:
LINK Several City Council members exit after Sekula-Gibbs' remark
"Several City Council members walked out on Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs Wednesday, saying her rhetoric against a police policy on illegal immigrants exploited for political gain the death of an officer whose funeral they had just attended.
The symbolic move was the only time in recent memory that a group of council members left the chambers to protest a colleague's comments."
Of course , this is simply par for the course with Sekula of many names. It represents only a recent example.
Let's make another connection to the local vartiety of the pervasive Repug politics of fear. Harris County also is home to Reverend Laurence White. Who is Reverend Laurence White? Read on:
LINK Houston Democrats: Patriot Pastors for Perry
"He is pastor of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, a Lutheran church in Northwest Houston. Referring to the Texas Restoration Project, White says, "It's new in Texas, we've never done anything like it before."
The Texas Restoration Project is , of course , the local version of the Ohio project of the same name that probably helped the Great Decider to his tainted victory in 2004. See here.
We are further informed that:
LINK "Reverend Laurence White is out to play a pivotal role in deciding who will be our next governor. He is fired up over the removal of the bible that used to sit in front of the Harris County Courthouse, and believes that government is forcing religion out of our lives."
Now comes this dishearting report on some recent reseach :
LINK The Politics Of Negativity And Fear -
"Social psychologists have long known that people cling more tenaciously to their negative opinions than to their positive ones. Thus, if youre a campaign manager, the best tactic for insuring that your supporters and any new converts will remain loyal is persuading them to think negatively about your opponent."
Nothing new here, but here there is something new:
LINK The Politics Of Negativity And Fear -
"....you can create negative attitudes so subtly that people dont even realize theyve been manipulated, and that once the attitude is established, it seems to inoculate the person against changing his or her mind. In a series of experiments, psychologists George Bizer and Richard Petty presented people with fake newspaper articles about two opposing candidates. Once participants indicated their preferences, the researchers asked half of each candidates supporters to rate how strongly they supported their candidate, and asked the other half to rate how strongly they opposed the other candidate, thus leading half the subjects to conceptualize their support negatively. Then Bizer and Petty gave everyone the second half of the articles, which presented damning facts about their preferred candidate.
Overwhelmingly, people whose attitudes had been negatively framed adhered to their support for their candidate much more than did the people whose attitudes had been positively framed. Thus negative framing seems to enhance a voters loyalty to his or her preferred candidate."
There is more:
LINK The Politics Of Negativity And Fear -
"Since then, more than 250 experiments have shown that when peoples fear of death is stoked, they'll more favorably evaluate people with similar religious and political beliefs, and more unfavorably evaluate those with differing beliefs. They'll feel more punitive toward moral transgressors and more favorably disposed toward heroic figures. They'll act more physically aggressive toward those with antagonistic political views, and strive harder to stay within the perceived mainstream cultural values."
Sound familiar? If you say George Bush's America, you can stay on the Island.
Speaking of The Great Decider, the article ends with this report:
LINK The Politics Of Negativity And Fear -
"A recent study reported in the electronic journal Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, led by Florette Cohen and Daniel Ogilvie of Rutgers University, examines how TMT may have influenced the last presidential election. Just prior to the election, Cohen and Ogilvie studied 131 likely voters, asking half of them to write about their own deaths and the other half to watch innocuous television programs. When they were asked for whom theyd vote, those whose fear of death had been activated chose Bush by more than 2:1, while the television-viewing group chose Kerry by a margin of more than 4:1."
So, what is to be done? In a free society, you cannot outlaw appeals to fear , you can proscribe negative campaigning. What you can do is learn to challenge all such attacks early and hard, before it becomes the domiant narrative , the framing used by the media. That has been our classic mistake, one which we are still paying for and well be paying for probably for the lifetime of all of the 9-11 generations.
You say, wait a minute, the lateset polls report that Dems are trusted more than the Repugs on national security and terrorism. For example this:
LINK Most amazingly, Democrats are even preferred by 43-41 on terrorism and by 43-41 on protecting the US. (Note: the just-released Newsweek poll also finds the Democrats ahead--this time by 44 percent to 37 percent-- on which party is trusted more to fight the war on terror.)
This is good news, but realize that it has taken years of Iraq, the Foley scandal, incredible incompetence and the rise of the leftie web blogs to bring this about. Also remember, that everytime we go through one of these cycles where the politics of fear and negativity are not just part of the mix, but the dominant theme, they get better and better at it. Compared to the present crew, McCarty was just a badly dressed carnival barker. We pride ourselves on how the system brought him down, on how the one crusading journalist and the power of live TV did him in. That didn't happen this time, I don't think it can ever happen again.
So, the mixture of badly used religion promising esay solace for our fears coupled with amoral politicans willing to use them and our worse angels against us will never go away. It is the duty of people like you and me to remain viligant and NEVER again let ourselves be silenced or intimidated by people like George Bush and Karl Rove, or Sekula-Gibbs or Cornyn. The price of our collective sloth in challenging these shysters is literallhy lives lost, careers disrupted and an ongoing stain on our national honor.
Presuming the elections go as we think they will this October and presuming ( a bigger persumption) that we take back the White House in '08, the questions I want to leave for us to consider are these:
- What is being done to make sure we are institutionaly ready for the next time?
- What is being done locally and statewide in this regard?
- How do we deal with the misuse of religion, not just now, but long term?
- Has our ability to fight back in the media improved? What are our long term prosepcts?
I would love to hear your opinion. I think I will try to give my answers as well in later postings.