In the seven years since a terrorist attack occurred on American soil, free discourse has cautiously returned to the public sphere.
Of course, we still have loads of 'political junk food' clogging up the airwaves and print columns. Mudslinging, blind partisan attacks and outright lies are being implemented in more vicious ways than ever.
But for all of Karl Rove's legacy of cutthroat dirty tricks, the one essential tool he relied upon time and again was fear. Fear was W and Rove's ace in the hole throughout this administration's life. Fear was the battering ram swung at the gates of dissent whenever political expediency required it. Whenever Congress deliberated a little too slowly, whenever the American people disapproved a little too stridently, whenever the invasion of Iraq seemed a little too far-fetched, fear ensured that W/Rove could get their way. This latest high-profile struggle concerning the largest non-budget spending bill in national history only serves as further evidence of fear's preeminence in the W political playbook.
Often times, on many of this decade's important issues including the elections in 2000 and 2004, the country would find itself divided 40-40-20: 40% Dems, 40% GOP, 20% Independents. Depending on the issue at hand, especially a passionate one like a presidential election, the numbers would shift slightly to the left or right.
To drag themselves to a 40% baseline, the GOP relied on a triple alliance of big business sponsors, rightwing media pundits and a fervent Christian base. Each member of the alliance had their duty - the pundits, by sheer number and visibility across all spectrums of the media, could turn any issue into a two-sided pitched battle. The base would back the pundits' arguments by turning out the mass numbers necessary in a democracy. Big business would pump in the funding for the whole operation. Here were three broad groups with very little in common except for an understanding of how to gain power in American politics. The manner in which these groups pooled their resources into the contradictory ideological blob that is modern American conservatism effectively forms the core of the 'vast right-wing conspiracy.'
The triple alliance, for all of Scaife/Gingrinch/Murdoch's efforts, could never seem to push the conservatives over the top. Heck, they couldn't even get a President who effectively lied under oath impeached. W had managed to be snookered into office thanks to a lot of well-placed surrogates and one nasty old Supreme Court. But during most of 2001, he was about as effective as Sarah Palin at the UN General Assembly: i.e. utterly not.
9/11 changed all that.
We all know how it changed us. The more honest ones amongst us remember how there existed for months, perhaps even years, a time when we as progressives were actually hesitant, even afraid of speaking our minds. Dissent against W and against the GOP 'majority' became taboo. Even mentioning the uncomfortable fact that W hadn't won the popular vote was tantamount to being a treasonous, terrorist-loving enemy combatant. Anyone remember how Michael Moore's Stupid White Men (a book which was wholly written before 9/11 and didn't mention any of the events afterwards) was going to get pulped before it even came out?
Arguing on the facts, flooding the media with swiftboating attack ads, resurrecting the ghosts of Ronald Reagan (or Bill Clinton); all these tactics fell just short of accomplishing the conservative revolt in America. The administration needed something more.
Fear would be that something. Somewhere along the lines, the GOP broadly and Rove specifically, learned that this was the element they had been searching for. That breakthrough moment must have come in late 2001 when W was able to pass the Patriot Act and other blatantly unconstitutional legislation with vast bipartisan majorities. Here was the popular support that W and the GOP just couldn't earn on their own.
"If we can't convince them we're right, we'll just scare the sh*t out of em' so bad they won't argue with us anymore."
So it began. An era of orange alerts, mushroom cloud smoking guns, dirty bombs, constant threats against bridges, tunnels, national monuments, New Year's Eve in Times Square, and most frightening of all: Dick Cheney soundbytes.
Heady days those were.
It's testament to the toughness of Americans that we were able to cast off the trauma of that time and get back to regular life so quickly. Personally, I thank the genius of Howard Dean. But W and Rove didn't want to let us off the hook so quickly.
The terror alerts and dire threats would continue to reemerge again and again. In 2003, we were told that if we didn't support the War, there would be mushroom clouds looming above American cities. In 2004, we were told that if we voted Democrat, we'd get hit again just like on 9/11. For the last few years, we've had Iran, shampoo bottles, shoe-bombs, Islamofascists and Rudy "noun-verb-and-9/11" Guiliani all knocking at our door, ready to blow the country into smithereens unless we voted Republican.
There is a word used to describe fear in its most dire, urgent form: terror.
To finally come to my point, John McCain, for all his incompetence and pitiful attempts at painting Barack Obama as "Hamas' Choice For President" hasn't drawn the fear card quite so blatantly as W/Rove did in 2004...yet. He may very well try to as things continue to get bleaker for him and his squirrelly Veep-pick. The lack of the fear card gives Democrats a huge advantage over a party that has nothing else to run on.
The American people, like a veteran returning from war, has seen and heard it all by now. We aren't going to buy the bullsh*t they've fed us for seven years anymore. We're going to take this election, and we're going to take back America. We've got history on our side, we've got the truth on our side and we're not scared of anything anymore. In fact, this time, we've made sure that it's the Republicans who've got something to fear:
Change.
Of all things, I think it was the poster for that great movie The Shawshank Redemption that summarized my point best:
"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope will set you free."
Yes it will.
Yes we can.