Fear Sells

In most civilized societies, it is considered a heinous crime of a truly depraved heart to fire into a crowd of people, even absent actual intent to injure any one person in particular. The mental state of the actor, in knowing but not caring that her actions will most certainly cause serious bodily injury to someone, is what elevates or aggravates the act, from manslaughter, to murder.

Rush, using radio broadcasts to inject daily doses of fear and hatred into the veins of some weak, sick, minds and troubled hearts is also heinous, even though you can’t see the faces of the people you make sicker. You are a savior to some of these people, and you make them sicker. Well adjusted, mentally healthy people may agree with your politics but are not your disciples.  You sell advertising on the back of folks that you hurt.

Rupert, fomenting that fear into hatred of a particular class of people and serving daily draughts of this toxic brew to already psychologically weakened, scared, and angry people only makes them more weak, scared, and angry. You know that this is true. You're counting on it. You have a whole network devoted to it. That is how you made your fortune.

And Sarah, you know that there are weak-minded, scared, and angry people out there, who will swallow just about any brand of snake oil you are hawking, because they are already sick and need to believe that you have the cure. You've met many of them for a moment and then quickly forgot them. Your folksy charm, winks, bullseyes, and reload metaphors both settle the nerves and inflame the passions of some of these good people and make them feel more comfortable about hating your targets and wishing that they could get them in their sites. What some of us would call psychopathic manipulation, you call a marketing strategy.

Glenn, you know that most of us laugh at you when you offer us survivalist backpacks and use your big chalk board to divine the degrees of separation between Kevin Bacon and the Apocalypse, but you are laughing all the way to the bank. You know that there are weak-minded, sick, scared, and angry people out there who buy, literally, what you are selling. They are already scared half to death (by you and your network), but you don’t mind giving them an extra little nudge when the ratings demand it.

Darrell I., Michelle B., Jon K., John B., Jim D., Sharon E., you know full well that, when you call our President a corrupt, Socialist, Communist, non-American, Muslim, who must be stopped, you are not just yammering. You long for that special present on your secret wish list. When you spend your days pushing the drug du jour for your corporate sponsors, you are also screwing with the minds of some weak, sick, people, who are already at the end of their psychological rope. Your invective makes them weaker, sicker, more fearful, and enraged. And predictably, a psychotic or two over extends one of your talking points into a delusional yet patriotic rationale for murdering innocent people. But that is not your problem. It is not your fault. It’s just collateral damage. And you have no shame about finding a way to spin the tragedy away from you and onto your opponents. Just politics, as usual.

None of you charlatans are to be despised for making a living. You are to be despised for selling fear and for so callously dehumanizing the faceless people whose welfare you hold in trust. They do have faces and have lives and have worth, and they look to you for a moral compass to navigate a path away from their malaise. And you don’t give a damn. They are out there, even though the only face you can actually see is your own reflection in the camera lens.


J. Brandeis Sperandeo