And so it began!
politics of fear denotes when leaders (or candidates for leadership) use fear as a driving or motivating factor for the people, to get them to vote a particular way, allow excesses in spending, or accept policies they might otherwise abhor. The concept relies on the fact that presenting people with an alleged threat to their well-being will elicit a powerful emotional response that can override reason and prevent a critical assessment of these policies. The Cheney George W. Bush administration used this tactic after the events of September 11, 2001 to illegally invade liberate Iraq, erode civil liberties, and avoid Congressional oversight. This has been continued by the Obama administration, and doesn’t seem likely to end any time soon. It is, however, not really a modern phenomenon — access to modern media simply makes it much easier to fear-monger.
I bring this up as the 2022 election looms large….
Look at the GOP they have nothing but FEAR as a platform for the election…..
Republicans are planning to use crime—translation: racist dog whistles—as a major part of their message for the 2022 midterm elections, NBC News reports. “Democrats want to defund the police” is going to be a Republican rallying cry in far more races than there are Democratic politicians who actually want to defund the police. (And the goal of “defund the police” is of course going to be radically misrepresented.) Black Lives Matter is also going to be targeted as a source of violence, all facts to the contrary, because … well, you know.
“In some districts, we focused on ‘defund the police’ and the broader culture fight,” a Republican operative told NBC News of the 2020 effort to win the House. “The broader culture” fight equals overt racism, in case you were wondering. He continued, “But in many suburban districts, we took ‘defund the police’ and turned it into a public safety issue about whether there should be increased or decreased police in your neighborhood, and what public safety officials do to keep people safe.” In other words, in districts where overt racism would turn voters off, Republicans used more veiled racism.
…
As Republicans gear up to run on a crime-crime-crime-we-are-the-party-that-can-prevent-crime (psst, crime means Black people) platform, there were more than 400 shootings in the United States over the Fourth of July weekend, with at least 150 people killed. Republicans continue to fiercely oppose even the most minor tweaks to gun laws as part of reducing the crime they claim to think is such an enormous problem. Republicans want you to be afraid of a stereotypical racist dog whistle of a criminal, but they want to keep hands in the guns of men who stalk and abuse women they’re dating. The fear they want you to feel doesn’t extend to action on school shootings. Until recently, Republicans even blocked funding for research into gun violence to promote a better understanding of, and better solutions to, the problem. The Republican plan is all about supporting the same old police tactics and blaming the groups of people Republicans blame for everything, rather than considering what would actually work. They hope to ride that to victory in 2022.
(dailykos.com)
The GOP is so supportive of police that North Carolina passed a new bill…..
North Carolina Republicans, like their brethren across the country, love to frame themselves as protectors of law and order. They especially love to mischaracterize progressive attempts at policing reform as calamitous cuts to police departments.
But in our state, there’s one party that’s been dangerously shorting the criminal justice system over the past decade. Incredibly, that party appears ready to continue doing so despite North Carolina’s $6.5 billion surplus.
According to a Charlotte Observer report, the Republican-led Senate has passed a $26 billion spending plan that would cut one prosecutor from the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office, reducing the roster of assistant district attorneys to 84. (The House will likely pass its budget later this month.) Republicans also want to transfer a District Court judge from Durham to Bladen County and move two assistant public defender positions from Wake County to Robeson County.
Gulf South Free Press 
We had our politics of fear during the Cold War. Then it re-emerged with fear of union power and working class movements that ended up leaving us with Thatcher. Now we have the politics of fear over the pandemic, and unchecked immigration. It never goes away.
Best wishes, Pete.
Fear is a great emotional motivator for the voter…..and it seems to work most times chuq