Consider now the primal fear of being slaughtered at home. Conjure up the ancient fear of dying at the hands of invaders in the act of defending, fleeing, or surrendering, whether in a fire-lit cave, a tribal encampment, a shopping mall or concert hall, or whatever piece of real estate is your homeland.
Now fold in the nuanced fear of leadership that cannot, or will not, prevent it.
In the mainstream media’s terror-war narrative, conservatives are the fear-mongers. Right-wing cyberspace, talk radio, the Republican Party and its candidates, and Fox News all face accusations of stoking xenophobic, nationalistic fear for political gain.
Step back from the fear of barbarians at the gate and ask: Who has scared the country more?
Partisan spin-work aside, it is always the political party in power that has the superior ability to strike fear, especially when that power takes on a life of its own, independent of the foundations of a society. Fear-mongering by those at the helm of government brings the fear home.
When Rush Limbaugh came out in the first weeks of President Obama’s first term and said, “I hope he fails,” the MSM was aghast, and even some fans thought the talk star was being a little harsh. Wasn’t part of being a good American giving a new president a chance, even if you didn’t vote for him?
It is now obvious that Limbaugh was correct. To the extent that Obama has “succeeded”— especially, but not limited to, in the arena of foreign policy — our nation is demonstrably less safe. With the full agenda clear and the executive decisions flying, the retrospective question becomes: Where were you and what were you doing when the Obama administration (to borrow a meme from Senator Ted Cruz) jumped the shark?
Limbaugh was right, straight out of the gate; for others, a Fonzie moment was required to achieve epiphany.
When did you start fearing the Obama administration’s foreign policy?
There was puzzlement, not fear, in red-state America, when Senator Barack Obama campaigned to close Gitmo. In the context of recent history, it didn’t make any sense. When Obama took office and the closure never came, the idea became merely an inexplicable campaign promise—one which now shows every indication of being kept.
It wasn’t quite fear that accompanied Eric Holder’s Justice Department attempt to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court building just blocks from Ground Zero — one was more likely to be flabbergasted or perplexed. Perplexity became outrage the more you internalized what happened on that hallowed ground. It was the first indication for many that the new administration was operating under vastly different core precepts than anything we had previously seen.
When the Fort Hood shootings became “workplace violence,” fear infiltrated between the lines that were omitted from the official explanations, but denial was still possible. The worst was happening overseas, in places like Mumbai, and on the streets of post-withdrawal Bagdad. Domestic issues rose to the fore — the economy, healthcare, and the moral and cultural trajectory of the nation.
But terror is forever, and Ambassador Stevens’ death in Benghazi, even in those first hours and days when little was known by the public, presented incontrovertible evidence of the priorities and/or vigilance of our leaders to any that would heed it. Only later did we learn that calls for a rescue mission went unanswered, and that an attempt had been made to remanufacture the causes of the attack for political purposes.
A beheading in Oklahoma became more “workplace violence.” Then there were the lies surrounding the Bergdahl swap. The Iran nuclear deal was struck — no more potentially dangerous a pact has ever been made. The Paris “setback” became a prelude to a climate conference that proclaimed disputed science as the worst threat facing civilization.
A cruel and cowardly attack in San Bernardino was followed by a call for increased gun control that backfired. Porous borders, north and south, and an unaccountable plan to bring to the United States the same Syrian refugees that are destroying an enfeebled Angela Merkel’s Germany filled out the transformative agenda.
The party in power over the last seven years has stoked primordial fears about foreign invasion, cultural inundation, loss of homeland, and death.
Reasonable fears that Democrats will flood the zone with a new immigrant constituency can sometimes seem oddly quaint. Such a goal would leave the basics of the system envisioned by our Founders intact, at least ceremonially. The only way to ensure the progressive ascension to permanent power would be to destroy the system.
With Democrats in presidential power, shark-jumping has become just another day at the Oval Office.
