Sunday, October 12, 2008

Annals of McCain - Palin, XXIV: Hatemongering

A lot of pundits seem dismayed and surprised at the moral depths to which Dishonest John McCain's campaign has sunk in the last week. I have to disagree. There is nothing surprising about it. This is his MO: do whatever he thinks is necessary. McCain has a long history of lack of principle and probity, whether it is in his personal life (a vile and abusive temper, disloyalty to his first wife) or his public life (corrupt behavior in the Savings and Loan scandal, chicanery on behalf of gaming interests and much more). Where I do agree with his new found critics is the frightening nature of his behavior in a time when the economy is spiraling out of control and a major depression is looming. Historically these conditions have unleashed the worst in the American character, a visceral Nativism and the McCain - Palin campaign events are enabling the kind of racist, xenophobic and vicious responses that tend to accompany hysterical fear turned and turn it to unthinking anger. It isn't just scaring me. It's scaring a lot of people, including Republican moderates (the ones that are left).

At the Effects Measure scienceblog - distinguished by the avalanche of examples they've compiled of the phenomenon in question.

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