Why OWS Is the Next Republican Boogeyman -- Hartmann

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/24-4

The Boogeyman is dead, and Santa is dying.

The Republicans have been, since the 1930s, the party of the Boogeyman. They led the fear-based crusades against Communists, first with the Blacklist, then Joe McCarthy’s hearings, then the twin fears of Communist Mao and the Communist USSR. With the death of the Soviet Union, and the corporate embrace of still-Communist China, 9/11 let them turn their fears to “radical Islam.”

But when President Obama killed Bin Laden, it took the steam out of their movement. And to make matters worse, Obama had earlier gone to Egypt and said, in essence, “Tear down these dictators!” – helping spark the Arab Spring and totally deflating the Republican fear machine, which now sputters along on the fringes trembling about Bachmann’s gays, Santorum’s fertilized eggs, and Perry’s immigrants. The likelihood of Mormon Romney’s presidential candidacy means they can’t even add “God” to their traditional “Gays, Guns, and God” trinity of GOP fears.

Without something or someone to be afraid of, the Republicans are truly lost, wandering in the wilderness. And no matter how hard they try to gin up fear of the “dreaded deficit bomb,” it just doesn’t make Americans jump the way the USSR’s nukes did two generations ago, or 9/11 did a decade ago. So now they’re trying to whip up fear of the Occupy Wall Street folks, but so far OWS has the sympathy of average Americans; it’s just not working for the Republicans.

More at the link --

[joeybee12]

1. Always got to stir up fear and hate...that's what fascists do...knr