What is A Climate of Fear?

I ran into a right wing acquaintance last Friday morning, the morning of the second debate. 

"Did you see how Putsch is preparing for tonight’s debate?" I asked him. He shook his head no.

I fell into Mohammed Ali’s 'rope-a-dope' pose. He rewarded me with a thin, wintery smile, which of course was exactly what I was hoping to see. 

"Have you noticed there aren’t many Bush-Cheney signs around?" he asked.

Well, I had. I figured it was because the majority of Republicans in my neck of the woods are 'small l' libertarians, who want unobtrusive government, lower spending, no "world’s policemen" games, especially ones that cost hundreds of billions and get thousands of kids killed and wounded, and who believe in separation of church and state -- religion belongs in the heart, politics belongs in the wallet. For conservatives, they make pretty good neighbors.

So it stood to reason that none of them wanted to put a sign on their front lawn that said, "I’m an abject fool who puts party affiliation ahead of what I believe." 

"People are afraid" he whispered. "Liberals have created a climate of fear. Signs are being burned and shot at, and car paint jobs keyed, and windows shot out."

I belatedly remembered that the last time I had seen my acquaintance, I had noticed he had put on about 40 pounds and was wearing a propeller beanie, which is a bit unusual for a realty agent. Maybe things weren’t going well at home. 

I had just sent a letter to the editor of our weekly newspaper regarding the destruction and theft of Kerry/Edwards signs around. It wasn’t a real serious problem, but I wanted to prevent it from escalating (keep it at the level of "nuisance" you could say), and I had done some homework and checked with some Republican friends to see if any Bush/Cheney signs were being molested. None were. 

"Windows shot out? Cars keyed? Around here?"

"Well, no. Not around here. But you heard about the windows being shot out at the GOP headquarters back east, right?” Right. “And in Minnesota, they actually caught sign vandals stealing Bush/Cheney signs on videotape."

"Uh, no. Those were Kerry signs. I know the guy who shot the videotape," I explained.

Undaunted, he ploughed on. "People are frightened. They don’t know what angry liberals might do to them if they express themselves."

I paused to wonder if I was exactly the right person for him to discuss this with. After all, I am younger, faster, and had already demonstrated in the conversation that I knew something about the manly art of boxing. Obviously, my acquaintance was putting his life in my hands here.

To make a long story short, I let him live. I just didn’t want to have to deal with the paperwork.

My acquaintance wasn’t real big on formulating independent thoughts. He got that stuff about "a climate of fear" from somewhere else. I figured to look into this.

Sure enough, the right wing has a “climate of fear” campaign going. The National Review had a piece that said,  "Blogger Robert Musil suggests that a climate of fear has descended upon Republicans in at least some parts of the country. Based in Los Angeles, Musil says most Republicans he's spoken with are afraid to put Bush-Cheney bumper stickers on their cars, or signs on their lawns, for fear of physical retaliation from angry liberals. The problem is not symmetrical, says Musil. Stickers and signs for Kerry are widespread in Republican neighborhoods. Yet even in their own communities, Republicans are holding back. Intrigued by Musil's claim, I put up a post on NRO's blog, The Corner, asking for reader comment. I was quickly flooded with nearly 300 e-mails, almost all of them backing Musil."

Imagine an America devastated by roving packs of angry liberals. Having trouble with that? Yeah. So am I.

I mean, talk about conflicting stereotypes. What are these angry liberals expected to do, exactly? Throw back issues of Mother Jones on their lawns? Refuse to invite Putsch supporters to white wine and brie faculty meetings? Accuse them of endangering the spotted owl?

It's amazing. There are all these right wingers who for years have blustered that liberals are ineffectual, weak, timid, and worst of all, non-violent, and now they huddle in their enclaves, shaking in fear that supporting their candidate might draw disappointed looks from those same liberals!

If people write in and say they KNOW of cases where Bush/Cheney signs have been defaced, stolen, vandalized, or even know of cars getting keyed, I won’t be very surprised. Any political group of any size attracts its share of immature jerks. It’s always been that way. Dirty tricks involve defacing signs. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t happen.

We had a congressional candidate in southern California -- a Democrat who defaced his own signs for sympathy one year. (His name was Dick Tuck, and his signs consisted of a picture of him with just his last name both above and below the image. He went around crossing the T on the top Tuck). What made him different was that he cheerfully admitted to the LA Times that he had vandalized his signs, and encouraged his followers to do the same. (For anyone who doesn’t know who Dick Tuck was, do a Google on him; he was one of the most marvelous people to ever get involved in politics). 

But I keep going back to those screaming hordes of liberals with pitchforks. Or maybe they were crab forks; the light was bad, making it hard to tell. 

So right wingers, after years of pressuring book-sellers and schools, and taking economic reprisals against liberals, are suddenly afraid of us? Wow.

Well, I'm gonna show those guys what REAL terrorism is. The next Bush-Cheney sign I see, I'm going to walk right up to the guy and accuse him of preferring tractor pulls over Alan Alda! So there!

And if the guy shows the slightest hint that he isn’t immediately turned into a craven, quivering blob who offers to pull up his sign and burn it to please me, if he shows the slightest hint of resistance, I’ll show him what I know about boxing.

I’ll drop into my rope-a-dope pose.