National Security and '08: What's Different Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Lorelei, progressive faith guru Mara Vanderslice and I teamed up last week on a panel to talk about peace and security issues and the '08 elections.  We were challenged to think about what's going to make this cycle different. Here's what I came up with:

1.  People already know that things are bad.  Four and even two years ago, progressives engaged in great debates about whether and how to tell Americans that neo-conservative policies had made us less safe and less respected.  Not this time -- if anything, I would argue that the public doesn't want to hear more harping about how bad things are, but rather what anyone is going to do about it.  If you need more convincing about that, see here, here and especially here -- reporting that the top words that come up in focus groups when people are asked their feelings about their country are "sad," angry," "uneasy" and "worried."

2.  But that doesn't mean they think progressives can fix it.  Iraq and Katrina, following on decades of conservative rhetoric about "shrinking government until we can drown it in the bathtub," have convinced lots of Americans that government can't do anything right.  National security is the only government function that gets passing marks from a bare half the population in a recent poll.  Americans no longer believe that stationing troops abroad helps fight the War on Terror or prevents states like Iran from getting nuclear weapons -- a healthy repudiation of Administration strategy, yes, but also a vote of no confidence in our strongest tools. 

3.  This means linking everything to security won't work.  Some progressives have been very tempted to put every foreign policy into a "security issue" frame for the public.  And of course, in an interconnected world, issues like AIDS, poverty and the environment do have security impacts.  But it seems likely that this framing hurts at least as much as it helps with voters who are over-security-ed.

4.  Speaking of skepticism... I'm still looking for the link, but I understand there exists an 06 poll in which Americans said that while they are still nervous about terrorism, they think their neighbors are more afraid than they are -- which is a good sign that scare tactics won't work as well with as many voters this time.

5.  Accountability.  The Democracy Corps gurus who brought the focus group adjectives I mentioned in point 1 say that "Accountability is the core doubt people have about Congress, Washington and the federal government."  They recommend that everything progressives propose should have specific accountability elements, and that all Iraq proposals should have financial accountability provisions.  That's an interesting challenge for us striped-pants-and-noblesse-oblige types, but probably a good challenge.

6.  And about Iraq...  I'll just quote what a longtime public opinion observer said to me last December:  "Iraq's not a foreign policy issue anymore.  It's a domestic policy issue now."  Fair or not, adjust mindsets accordingly.

Comments

[Bob Narus]

"Americans no longer believe that stationing troops abroad helps fight the War on Terror or prevents states like Iran from getting nuclear weapons -- a healthy repudiation of Administration strategy, yes, but also a vote of no confidence in our strongest tools."

Perhaps Ms. Hurlbert would like to explain to us ignorant commoners how stationing troops abroad will prevent Iran from getting nukes.

The real fallacy here, of course, is the notion that military might is "our strongest tool." We may have more of it than anybody else, but that doesn't make it a strong tool.

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The American people have been propagandized that terror is actually a threat to them when it isn't. That's why they are "sad," angry," "uneasy" and "worried." The average American faces a greater threat from a bathtub slip than s/he does from a terrorist, to say nothing of lightning strikes, auto accidents or heart disease. So the whole bogus "war on terror" construct is built on a false foundation. The military option becomes the only option, and peace and diplomacy become dirty words.

An intelligent discussion of national security is impossible until this basic fact is recognized. Meanwhile it doesn't matter how the spinmeisters spin it, it's all incomprehensible BS to the average American, and rightfully so.

The "War on Terror" is BS--even Rumsfeld said so. Please, if you must use it, at least put it in quotes. It's meaningless, and its usage is the main reason why we can't get the government re-oriented (as you rightfully suggest) toward meaningful world issues.

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