“Fear is a man’s best friend,” wrote John Cale, and when it comes to the midterm elections, American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman seems to think that the public’s fear of Ebola is the Republicans’ best friend. In a Friday post, Waldman sniped that the addition of Ebola to concern about ISIS and illegal immigration has enabled the GOP to cook up “a putrid stew of fear-mongering, irrationality, conspiracy theories, and good old-fashioned Obama-hatred” for the home stretch of the campaign.
Waldman speculates that “there will be just enough” voters frightened by this approach “to carry the GOP across the finish line in November. When people are afraid, they're more likely to vote Republican…And you couldn't come up with a better vehicle for creating that fear than a deadly disease coming from countries full of dark-skinned foreigners.”
From Waldman’s post (emphasis added):
I don't know if Ebola is actually going to take Republicans to victory this fall, but it's becoming obvious that they are super-psyched about it. Put a scary disease together with a new terrorist organization and the ever-present threat of undocumented immigrants sneaking over the border, and you've got yourself a putrid stew of fear-mongering, irrationality, conspiracy theories, and good old-fashioned Obama-hatred that they're luxuriating in like it was a warm bath on a cold night.
It isn't just coming from the nuttier corners of the right where you might expect it. It's going mainstream. One candidate after another is incorporating the issue into their campaign…Because really, what happens if you gave legal status to that guy shingling your roof, and the next thing you know he's a battle-hardened terrorist from the ISIS Ebola brigade who was sent here to vomit on your family's pizza? That's your hope and change right there…
Even if most people aren't whipped up into quite the frenzy of terror Republicans hope, I suspect that there will be just enough who are to carry the GOP across the finish line in November. When people are afraid, they're more likely to vote Republican, so it's in Republicans' interest to make them afraid. And you couldn't come up with a better vehicle for creating that fear than a deadly disease coming from countries full of dark-skinned foreigners. So what if only two Americans, both health care workers caring for a dying man, have actually caught it? You don't need facts to feed the fear. And they only need two and a half more weeks.
