Reason #15: Fear Itself

The CBS Evening News seen through the eyes of a Republican.

This is a very special Halloween edition of Reasons Why Obama Will Lose.

I have often wondered why the Republican animal avatar is the noble elephant. But now I know. It has to be based on the pachydermous panic when confronted with a mouse.

The phantasms of the Republican imagination during this time of universally positive Obama polls make up a Wes Craven movie from G.O.P. hell. (Note: G.O.P. hell is the real hell, in the same way that red states are the real America.)

Allow me to be your docent as we tour the right wing of our national art house of horrors.

• Our way of life is about to end!! The election of Obama will result in the United States becoming completely socialist…just like Cuba!
• Obama wants to take away all the guns. Nooooo! (It turns out the rural folks really do cling to guns and religion after all…)
• Boo! Obama is secretly a Muslim who will bring about the downfall of the US and welcome world government rule over all of us!
• Antichrist alert! Obama wasn’t born in the US but some conspiracy is covering it up
• If Obama is elected American blacks will somehow turn the tables on whites and make them ride in the back of the bus, get off the sidewalk, etc. Race war!!!!  (Note: It’s amazing how people just come out of the woodwork to provide me with perfect examples of my points.)
• The Obama fundraising call you answered is coming from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE!!! (ok, I made that one up.)

And so many more.

These terrifying notions are going to get the anti-Obama vote out far more effectively than any positive feelings about McCain.

And why do they work so well? It turns out that, in spite of Republican branding as the party of the tough grown-ups, conservatives are actually more like 8 year olds at sleep-away camp making their flash-lit and cringing way back to the cabin after a particularly effective ghost story.

Scientists recently found that when they exposed subjects who “favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War” to scary images, like spiders sitting on human faces, they exhibited more dramatic physiological stress responses than subjects who “support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control”.

It sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. Easily frightened people are frequently in control of our government and military!

What are the results of having people with this kind of brain structure making political decisions? Let’s look at a very specific example:

For the last 20 years ultra-conservative idiots have sabotaged American attempts at joining something called “The Law of the Sea Convention.” Their argument is the normal one – that it threatens American sovereignty and subjects us to an international court, etc.

But here’s the thing: everyone with any kind of sense (including the joint chiefs, Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, Liberals) understands that this treaty increases US sovereignty over the oceans and effectively doubles U.S. territory. Incredibly it was negotiated/concocted entirely by the US to favor our interests. Meanwhile the military is saying that every day that we don’t sign the treaty is a threat to our national security because Iran contends that until we ratify they can close off the Straight of Hormuz, something pretty much within their capacity.

But the John Birch/Black Helicopter crowd are so horrified by anything that smacks of international obligations that they have managed to stop our nation from signing an agreement THAT WE OURSELVES WROTE!

The cowardly Dr. Smith from “Lost In Space” is a shoe-in for the Palin administration’s surgeon general.