Appeal To Fear
by Jeffrey Folks
Issue 138 - August 26, 2009

Back in February President Barack Obama insisted that nothing less than a $900 billion stimulus package was absolutely necessary, right now. “A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into catastrophe,” he claimed. “If we do not move swiftly,” the economy “will be faced with catastrophe.” Although Obama’s $900 billion figure was cut to a mere $787 billion by an astoundingly “frugal” Democratic Congress, apparently that was not enough. The Democratic majority now speaks of a second stimulus in the fall.

In the study of rhetoric, the president’s tactic of alarming the listener is termed the “appeal to fear.” It is a rhetorical device familiar to all children. “If you don’t stop that, I’ll tell your father when he gets home.” (In a society in which more than half of children have no father in the home, this example may not be as familiar as it once was. How about “If you don’t finish your homework, you won’t pass the spelling test and you won’t be getting the Hannah Montana DVD you asked for!”) Anyway, you get the point. The appeal to fear is perhaps the crudest and most juvenile of rhetorical devices, which is why it works so well with juveniles.

From his continual use of the appeal to fear, it would appear that the president regards the public as juvenile. Everywhere he looks, Obama finds it expedient to discover a catastrophe waiting to happen: a health care catastrophe, a climate catastrophe, a fiscal catastrophe. As noted in Scientific American, Obama promised in 2008 to address the “immediate threat” of a “planet in peril’”—and in doing so create an astounding “five million” green jobs. (Those must be in the category of “saved” but not “created,” since more than two million jobs have been lost since the stimulus bill funding so many of those green jobs was passed.) But it’s not just climate change: we must address the devastation of endangered species, global deforestation, and other “environmental catastrophes.” Obama’s science czar, John Holden, has proposed a number of solutions, from population control to shooting particles into the atmosphere to cool the planet by reflecting solar rays.

With the help of the national media, Obama has convinced much of the public that the country is on the wrong track. The solution is more spending and more regulation. Having passed $2.5 trillion in new spending, the president will announce that catastrophe has been averted. The best part of this approach is that it is impossible for one’s opponents to prove that a catastrophe might not have taken place. It is a lot like those jobs that were “saved”: no one can prove that they were not, even if unemployment numbers continue to rise. Think how bad off we would be if we had not given the president everything he wanted!

As reported by Mt. Vernon Research, the president announced on July 10 that “an economic collapse of epic proportion has been prevented.” Amazingly, in six short months Obama has transformed cataclysm into green shoots, and he has done so by means of a stimulus package that contains little in the way of actual stimulus and which has not even been spent. It is as if the mere presence of Obama in the White House has been enough to avert an epic collapse. Could it be that there was not really a catastrophe to begin with? A prolonged and severe recession, yes. A catastrophe, no. But for liberal Democrats, it is necessary to portray it as a catastrophe. Then the writing of checks to the liberal constituency can proceed.

Along with the economic crisis, there is the health care crisis. The “solution” is government takeover of the health care system. As soon as the takeover is complete, Obama will declare that a health care crisis “of epic proportion” has been averted. Then there is the catastrophe of climate change. The “solution” is government control of the energy sector under the pretext of carbon emissions regulation. As soon as the energy sector has fallen under government control, Obama will take credit for having averted another crisis of epic proportion. What will be next? Probably a social security crisis of epic proportion necessitating the confiscation, in one way or another, of retirement savings accounts. All that’s needed is to threaten the public with a knuckle sandwich and they will back down. Obama will even be glad to take credit for “fixing” social security after he has confiscated one’s 401K or taxed it to death.

By 2010 the president will undoubtedly be claiming that the “green shoots” are ripening into hardy stalks, even if the unemployment rate rises above 10% as predicted by most economists. The health care crisis will have been averted, even as private providers are driven out of business. The environmental catastrophe will have been dispelled, even as energy costs rise. The president will have addressed all of the catastrophes that he has invented, at least until after the election, when new ones will be unearthed. The liberal media will credit Obama for averting multiple disasters. The public will be instructed to feel veneration for its historic leader.

Will the electorate see through the sham? Will they realize that the catastrophes were never really that portentous and that the president’s solutions have been little more than political payback? Will they understand the heavy price they have paid to address catastrophes that were never that catastrophic?

Maybe, and maybe then Americans will have had enough of manufactured crises designed to make them more dependent on big government.

Dr. Jeffrey Folks taught for thirty years in universities in Europe, America, and Japan. He has published nine books and over a hundred articles on American culture and politics in national journals and newspapers. He is currently writing on issues in American culture, family values, and education.

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