The last couple of weeks, I’ve been seriously tweeting, building a following and my tweeting activity. In the process, I’ve come across a number of people who are simply tweeting D-party talking points. The chief among these is a variety of versions of the fear card. The formula is “if you don’t like X, then just vote R or, at least not for the Ds, and you’ll get a lot more of it.”
I’ve engaged a number of the tweeters involved. Most ignore me, but in two cases I’ve had reasonably extensive exchanges, and in one case, I’ve had an exchange where I kept getting the fear card played. I replied by pointing out that Ds weren’t behaving very well in relation to the specific fear my correspondent was pointing to.
Finally, I asked my correspondent, and also another interlocutor, whether, if I listened to them this time, and voted for the Ds, and they continued to support the corps and perform poorly, they would come back in 2012, and play the fear card on me again?
They didn’t answer the question, of course, because its implication is a never-ending loop, where I think the Ds are guilty of poor performance, but I can never present the consequences of their actions to them, because D supporters are playing the fear card, and the Ds are always the lesser of two evils. Of course, carrying this “lesser evilism” to its logical conclusion is the end of Democracy, because I can never hold the Ds accountable at the ballot box, if I always listen to people like my Twitter friends, and comply with the fear card.
So, then, when I saw there was no answer, I asked them what the Ds would have to do to get them to ignore the fear card and vote against the Ds? Again, I got no answer, and it was becoming obvious that their support of the Ds was a matter of quasi-religious belief, and that they were unwilling to say when they would hold the Ds accountable for their performance.
So then I asked, whether, assuming the Ds acted in the same way during the next 2 years as in the past 18 months, and I still felt the same way in 2 yrs as I do now about their performance, I would do less damage to the Ds if I voted against them, now or in 2012? Again they ignored the thrust of this question, because, of course, it’s less damaging to punish them now, and possibly have a situation in 2012, where they field better candidates, then it is to support them now, and have them retain control of Congress, only to have to vote against them for poor performance in 2012 when the Presidency is on the line?
By 2012, I hope we can have an alternative to both Ds and Rs on the ballot so we can get get rid of the corporatists. However, that’s neither here nor there, since again, no one answered my question.
Anyway, at the end of all this discussion, it came out that my interlocutor and I had a really fundamental disagreement which reflects on the fear card and who is using it. You see, I think Obama has performed terribly poorly, and she thinks he’s done a pretty good job. So, given our disagreement, I think she was arguing dishonestly.
That is, in playing the fear card against progressives who want to stay home, or vote against the Ds, because they are displeased with their performance, my interlocutor doesn’t try to persuade them that O and the Ds have done a good job, that they’re wrong in their evaluation of their records, and that’s why they ought to vote for the Ds. Instead, my interlocutor tries to play the fear card, because, as someone famous once said: “fear is the mind-killer.”
I think it is dishonest practice in argument to use the fear card first in trying to persuade people who disagree with you on the Ds performance to vote for the Ds. If they agreed with you, it would be another thing. Then you might want to point to your mutual fear of the Rs to motivate the person you’re talking to work harder. But when you’re tweeting at someone who differs with you on D performance, and, in spite of their fear of the Rs is making the difficult decision to forgo short-term self-interest in the interest of improving political choices over the long-term, then, once again, I consider that approach a manipulative one, and specifically, a pretty naked approach to fear in an effort to overcome their better and considered judgment.
I also think that wherever we see a practice like this we should not excuse it, or be understanding of it. It is a corrosive practice. It is this kind of practice that permeates our politics, and that is undermining our open society. Open societies rely very much on honesty and criticism to survive, and when we let dishonest and manipulative approaches pass without criticism, we are undermining the very foundations of our own Open Society. We need to stop doing that, or the results will be plutocracy or worse, before we know it.
(Cross-posted at FireDogLake and Fiscal Sustainability).