Instead, he gave us these rhetorical jewels taken straight from
the red scare handbook: "There is a very thin line between communism, progressivism, Marxism, Socialism. It's about nationalizing production, it's about creating and expanding the welfare state, it's about this idea of social and economic justice ... it is also about the creation of a secular state."
He went on to
say that the recent “debate” over proposed federal government rules requiring
most private insurance policies to cover female contraceptives was actually the
communist plot of the federal government to manipulate religious organizations “however
they wish.” West concluded by stating “Folks, do your research, understand these
ideologies, this is a choice between two very clear futures for the United States
of America. And I’m not going to back
down.”
The classic
maneuvers of a fear campaign on display.
First, level the first of many unsubstantiated claims by creating a
bogeyman, in this instance via a list of people, 68 to 71 members of Congress to
be exact, that are communists infiltrating our government. When challenged on this specious claim, the magician’s
sleight of hand begins and the initial fear tactic is set aside, the list
vanishes into thin air, essentially forgotten by the rhetor, and new claims of a
threat to our way of life are introduced, and more specifically threats to religion
are at the root of your political enemy’s enterprise. The grand maneuver of fear production, a
false binary is produced (one of the most used fallacies in political argumentation and persuasion - the false dilemma/binary); and you have a choice here folks, the traditional America
you love OR a communist, dictatorial state of big brother controlling all. Finally, the cherry on top of his rhetorical
sundae - the ethos/mythos creation of a lone warrior fighting to stop this
insurgency for all us, a warrior that will not back down to the threat of communism.
In the first
quarter of 2012, Allen West raised $1.8 million toward his re-election campaign. I wonder how he did that?
Does not the threat of communist conspiracy strike you as an odd ploy in this historical moment? The U.S.S.R. is gone and China allows its citizens to pursue capitalism. From whom, one should ask, do these hidden communist plotters take their orders? Maybe we are left to conclude that contemporary capitalism is the source of new communists, but that would be looking for logic within the illogical trope of Red baiting. How does this stuff find traction at all?
ReplyDeleteIt is quite odd, the conspiracy wing of the right still fears Putin as old guard KGB and try to make loose connections between Russia and communism. China never gets trotted out. What is left Cuba, South Korea? Dictatorial but not socialist, marxist or communist. I am amazed by its traction, but as Darren taught us, there has always been the paranoid among us, finding bogeymen everywhere but the twentieth and twenty first centuries have been fantastic with fear and illogical tropes that are astounding.
ReplyDeleteThe other dominant ploy of the moment is just as baffling: the attacks on women's bodies. Since 2010, there have been over 500 different pieces of legislation introduced (mostly at the state level, but some federal) that attempt to limit, ban, alter the abortion precedents of this country. The work evangelicals like Falwell, LaHaye, Robertson began in the 60s and 70s with the Moral Majority is really starting to bear fruit today. We are tacking hard to the right for a bit, but I believe we will correct the ship?