Rise of the New Right

Hardball Halloween Mask

In the last couple days, I have heard several advertisements for a special to be aired tomorrow night on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.  Its entitled Rise of the New Right.

These words from the ad caught my attention:

“The Tea Party is determined to take power.  What does that mean for America?”

I will take notice of anyone who uses phrases like “We’ve come to take our government back,” so I readily admit to being drawn to the Tea Party movement.  But I am not formally involved in the Tea Party in any way.  I have been to one rally as nothing more than a curious spectator.

I am jaded enough at this stage that my initial reaction is to not trust anyone making political statements, even statements that on the surface I am inclined to agree with.  I think this is primarily driven by the fact that no one seems to be able to articulate a vision or dream that is based on a positive view of the future.  Everyone wants to tell me why the other guys are bad.  No one is able to express why they are worthy of my support.

The Tea Party rally I experienced was no exception.  It was entirely about tearing down, and had no component associated with building up.

Perhaps I am naive.  Perhaps I am hoping against hope.  But I want to believe that the last thing the Tea Party is interested in is “taking power,” especially in the way that Chris Matthews understands those words.

In fact, I hope that the Tea Party is interested in the exact opposite of that.  I hope they are interested in diminishing the overall amount of power possessed by our government, and that they only wish to hold enough power to accomplish that goal.  The desire, in my long term perspective, is to eliminate anyone’s ability to hold enough centralized power to endanger the people’s freedom.

This ad depresses me beyond expression because it points once again to our inability to hold a meaningful discussion in this country.  The purpose of this program, even though it will be aired on what is nominally a news network, is to manipulate opinion.  Even more sinister than that is a deliberate intent to dissuade viewers from engaging with the other side.  The desire is to induce a visceral reaction that renders the listener unwilling to consider an opposing point of view.

And just to be clear, Fox does the exact same thing on the other side, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I find that equally abhorrent.

The phrasing on both networks is almost always deliberately assembled to instill fear of the opposition.  That fear must, by its nature, create implacable division with little room for discussion on shared ideals let alone actual compromise.

Read the ad again:

“The Tea Party is determined to take power.  What does that mean for America?”

Is it clear that this language is meant to divide through fear?

In Two Dilemmas, I wrote “will our economy survive this legislation?” in reference to the health care bill.

But the problem is actually deeper than that.

What I am really wondering is, “Can our society survive the loss of the fundamental ability to communicate despite our differences?”