E Pluribus Unum

"Are Democrats capable of reminding people that we have a tradition of brave and resolute behavior in the face of threats from the outside world...Or will people continue to react to the nightmares, terrors and hysteria whipped up by Bush's Republicans?"

Ya know, in spite of their driving ambition to undermine the social compact (some semblance of meritocracy and safety from institutional malfeasance), their disgusting pretense of purer motives to govern and their utter incompetence at governing at all (not surprising since their one apparent honesty in a sh*tstorm of deception is their admission that they don’t believe in government), Republican fear-mongering is the salient reason why they should be sent to the political wilderness until they are reformed through new leadership.

Although it is said that people are like sheep, they are actually more like dogs, genetically and behaviorally. They can be led (trained, if you will) based upon what their leaders instill in their hearts and minds. Train dogs through fear, intimidation and negative reinforcement and you get a neurotic dog with assorted behavioral problems. Train them with love and positive reinforcement and you get a better-adjusted animal (as most “authoritative” parents know, it’s generally the same with human animals).

Lead people by appealing to their sense of community and personal honor and you get one sort of culture, lead them by appealing to their fear and resentment and you get another. Both directions of leadership are self-reinforcing – becoming more morally motivated (selfless) tends to pull people toward greater enlightenment and civilized behavior, while making them more afraid or resentful (self-centered) makes them less thoughtful and more aggressive and intolerant. Ironically, those who are being negatively manipulated are also the least likely to realize that they’re having their psyches shaped by outside forces – they feel too embattled to be truly introspective.

America’s modern golden era of moral aspiration (WWII –through the Civil Rights Movement) was brought about by (mostly Democrat) leaders’ calls to our better angles (e.g., FDR’s “We have nothing to fear” to JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you…”). It was ended by a string of (mostly Republican) leaders’ appeals to fear (The Domino Theory to The War on Terror) and resentment (of liberals, “Welfare Queens” and now gays who want to marry).

Republican stock-in-trade is appealing to fear (chiefly fear of the “other”) and resentment (“they’re takin’ my job, my gun, my big-block, my flag, my ceremony,” etc.) or some combination of the two (twofer: “they’re takin’ my taxes and giving them to that brown-skinned “other”). The followers’ present day capitulation to leadership-inspired fear manifests itself in honest-to-God calls to execute their political rivals, in this case those who want to uphold the US Constitution and the rule of law by preventing neo-fascist overreach by the executive branch (making them no better than modern day “Loyalists").

Think about the premeditated evil it takes to purposely inflame racism and retrograde religious belief to pit rural white Americans against their urban, liberal, brown-skinned and/or gay fellow citizens over complete non-issues like gun registration or public prayer and issues of personal conduct like abortion or gay marriage that aren’t anyone else’s goddamn business in the first place. And then think about the traitorousness of scaring Americans into abandoning this county’s founding principles by fanning fears of far-flung bands of (literally) cave-dwelling, stateless lunatics with no mass following and no military capability (especially absurd after enduring a 46-year Cold War with the entire Soviet bloc).

As long as Republicans derive their power by developing and exploiting people’s base animal instincts to divide this country, they are the boils on the ass that is contemporary American politics. And as long as frightened, disgruntled and misled citizens keep voting them into power, this country will continue its descent into darkness.