The politics of hysteria

Michael Medved:

While most people go about their business — working hard, enjoying their families, struggling to pay the bills and planning to celebrate the holidays — activists try to raise money or snare votes by announcing The-End-Of-American-Civilization-As-We-Know-It. (TEOACAWKI).

No wonder voters feel increasingly embarrassed to identify as either Democrats or Republicans, preferring the designation "independent" or, most likely, uninvolved — feeling understandably alienated from the desperation that sets the tone in the political process.

Consider, for instance, Pat Buchanan's new book, Day of Reckoning (following its two similarly cheerful predecessors, State of Emergency and The Death of the West). This time, "Pitchfork Pat" (who drew a paltry 0.42% in his last presidential run) ups the ante with his bald declaration "that America is indeed coming apart, decomposing, and that the likelihood of her survival as one nation through midcentury is improbable."

On the other side of the ideological Grand Canyon, feminist firebrand Naomi Wolf simultaneously promotes her book The End of America, outlining a supposed 10-step Bush administration plan to impose a fascist dictatorship. In this context, she has talked on the radio with "black helicopter" conspiracist Alex Jones, who's hawking his own gift for the season: a new videotape "proving" that international bankers are perfecting plans to liquidate 80% of humanity.

Meanwhile, The World Can't Wait/Drive Out the Bush Regime crowd (with support from several members of Congress and a half-dozen Oscar winners) insists that the nation can't survive unless President Bush and Vice President Cheney are promptly impeached and jailed.

In the ongoing presidential campaign, candidates echo the same alarmist hysteria in clumsy, shameless attempts to shake core supporters out of apathy. According to such appeals, if you don't vote for one candidate or another, you'll leave yourself defenseless against terrorists, or lose your access to medical care, or watch illegal immigrants capture the Southwest for Mexico, or see the imposition of a fundamentalist theocracy.

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Politicians ae prone to overstatement to make their point, but as Medved points out when they take it to extreme they become like the kooks who wore sandwich boards saying "The end is near." In fact that picture comes to mind when I hear and see Al gore talking about global warming. I am just suspicious of people who think they know when the world is going to end or how it will end. It is too bad he did not include the globo warmers in the hysteria lobby.