This year's presidential contest is certainly a critical one in the context of recent events. We have massive troop deployment overseas, uncertainty over security on our own soil, and a shaky and tentative economic recovery. All these issues and others deserve vigorous debate between the candidates and their allies in the public sphere. What is not welcome, however, is the fear-mongering that we hear almost daily from both camps: a legitimate candidate should not have to scare Americans into voting for him.
Perhaps the most visible example of the politics of fear recently is Vice President Dick Cheney's comment that voting for the wrong person (read: Kerry) would increase the risk of a terrorist attack on America. While the GOP quickly offered a half-hearted apology for the Veep's remarks, Republicans, including both the president and the vice president, continued to make similar remarks in the following weeks.
This is not to say that such terrorizing of the electorate is limited to the red side of the contest. Democratic candidate John Kerry demonstrated he was able to scare "we the people" when he pointed out the continuing dangers of flying. Paralyzing Americans with fear will not make flying safer, nor will it make this country a better place to live.
Unfortunately, this is not Kerry's first attempt to induce fear to gain votes.
Circumspection is welcome in these uncertain times, but irrational fear is a great danger in itself.
The suggestion that voting for one's opponent would be tantamount to encouraging a terrorist attack is not simply unsettling, it is un-American. The American people know what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, and they understand that as long as this nation exists it will be at risk for another attack.
What the presidential candidates should know, however, is that playing on American fears of another attack is unpatriotic and disrespectful to the thousands of people who lost a loved one on that horrible day.
We absolutely remember 9/11. We do not, as residents of a large east coast city, need demagogue congressmen from Middle America to work to advance their agendas by stirring our fears. These people serve no security interests with their talk; they only serve their own political ends. We do not need them stepping on the ground where thousands lost their lives too early in order to demonstrate their patriotism, and we certainly could do without unnecessary invocations of that horrible day. We remember; it is they who forget.
