Apocalypse Election: Fear and Paranoia Won on Tuesday, Though Ebola and ISIL Were Not on the Ballot

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http://www.alternet.org/apocalypse-election-fear-and-paranoia-won-tuesday-though-ebola-and-isil-were-not-ballot

We live in a society where fear is pervasive. Sometimes it's very real, especially when it comes to climate change, joblessness, racism, violence against women and more. But in the context of this election, fear was often manufactured, transmitted zealously by the corporate media, pushed relentlessly by Fox and other right-wing outlets. Messages of fear dominated many of the campaign ads that led to Democrats getting crushed in many elections.

In this environment of fear, compounded by massive amounts of unregulated political spending, and tons of money from the Koch brothers and other heavy spenders, the Democrats seemed lost, despite having lots of money of their own. Given their current confused approach to politics, their general inarticulateness, and their need to run away from the President and Obamacare, most Democrats didn’t stand a chance against the onslaught.

The fear message wasn’t the only problem for the Dems. As Paul Rosenberg points out on Salon, the Democrats' lack of agenda or message resulted in an unexcited base, so the electorate turned out to be older than in 2010 as millennials stayed home in droves. The Republicans had even less of an agenda, but focused on their potent one-two punch of the fear card and the pummeling of Obama, whose popularity is in the dumpster. Of course, Obama's low approval rating is partly the result of six years of fearmongering about him and Obamacare.

The only way to beat a bully—or many bullies with hundreds of millions of dollars—is with incredible courage and truth-telling. But most Democrats ran scared in this election. Nothing demonstrated that more than Obama's backing off on immigration reform, something he promised during the summer; a moment when his courage could have stood out and mobilized people. He likely changed his mind because of fear from all the fearful Democrats who worried it would make them lose. But they lost anyway and they were wrong. Courage was what was needed.