One hallmark of a balanced political discourse is that both sides live in fear.
Fear that you’ll say something out of bounds. Fear that your charge will backfire. Fear that you’ll be held accountable for your own words.
All sides in politics need this fear. Without it you have a period of lunacy, or excess. This is a distinguishing mark of our time, as it was 40 years ago. One side’s cry of treason is systematically ignored, as would be the boy crying wolf, while the other side’s is given the big megaphone.
It’s bad for everyone. The side which isn’t heard might have a few facts on its side. The side which is heard has license to stifle any dissent against the status quo, even after it becomes the conventional wisdom among most people.
So it is today. The Right is free to cry treason all over the place — against Muslims, against Latin Americans, against anyone who calls themselves liberal — while the other side just isn’t heard.
For instance, did you know that Barbara Comstock, Laura Ingraham, Frank Gaffney (above), James Woolsey, and Dick Cheney all support a group that has called for a military coup by President Bush?
Personally I can’t imagine anything more anti-American. I can’t imagine anything more treasonous. Yet here is the call, and here is the group which sponsored it, the so-called Family Security Council.
Now imagine if a similarly-distinguished, high profile list of liberals supported a group overtly calling for military dictatorship in order to get rid of its enemies in the public sphere. I guarantee you would hear all about it. Instead it’s left to some blogs and discussion groups to spread the word, and the word will never get out far enough, fast enough to give these worthies a moment of upset.
Is there a chance in hell that Frank Gaffney, just to pull one name out of the hat, is going to be taken off CNN’s air as a result of this? None. If it does reach a Teevee editor, it will be dismissed. The Family Security Council will not be researched, its leaders will not even be questioned.
The word for that is immunity.
When political figures have that kind of immunity, any political
figures, it is incredibly dangerous for democracy. Especially when the
other side does not.
One result is that government officials and wannabe officials are free to state all sorts of nonsense. Like we need to censor the Internet to keep Al Qaeda from organizing in this country. Or we need a war against Hispanics.
That kind of thought becomes legitimate, even centrist, while the views
of 70% of us — the silent majority which doesn’t get on the Teevee — are ignored by the Smart Set.
The genius of democracy is it adjusts for this, in time. Newton’s
Second Law holds. For every political action there is an equal and
opposite reaction. Public opinion right now is a coiled spring, ready
to strike against the idiocy. Every poll shows this to be true.
Yet the Teevee won’t show it.
