Thread by @PnictogenHorses

more on the subject of #fear and how American right-wing politicians and pundits have exploited it. let's start with Mr. @dick_nixon and his aggressive foreign policy, which was contingent upon a lot of trite and racist ideas about how foreigners only respond to force.

(cont'd)

https://twitter.com/PnictogenHorses/status/1642626027922006016

"the Communists / the Vietnamese / the Cubans only respect strength," goes the general notion—along with the assertion that any backtracking or correction of mistakes will show "weakness" in the eyes of Johnny Foreigner, as if you were betraying fear to a wild animal.

(cont'd)

incidentally, there's a very strong tendency in racist Western discourse (especially on the right) to refer to nations in terms of stereotypes about their peoples, and it's betrayed in language like "the Chinese" or "the Vietnamese" used instead of "China" or "Vietnam".

(cont'd)

in any case, the general idea with hawkish foreign policy of the sort that both the @GOP and @TheDemocrats have loved for decades is that one must treat a nation like China (or "the Chinese") as though you were dealing with a wild dog: be "dominant" and don't show fear.

(cont'd)

in sum the United States only seems to be happy in the world when its leaders and citizens think that everyone's *scared* of them. U.S. foreign policy is almost wholly _emotional_ in nature—it's about image and prestige and putting the fear of God into American enemies.

(cont'd)

underlying such a fear-based foreign policy is plain and simple bigotry—the general attitude of Western supremacy, which says that "the West" is uniquely rational and gifted with abstract thinking, whereas foreign parties are all a bunch of irrational [slurs] with guns.

(cont'd)

and nothing is scarier than The Bomb™. Americans are very proud of the Bomb, and they try as hard as possible to pretend that there's something uniquely American about it—even though it was a team of physicists from around the whole world who collaborated on it.

(cont'd)

The Bomb™ was the secret to the propaganda success of the Reagan administration, which leaned into nuclear brinkmanship. it was a sort of extension of the so-called "Madman theory" of diplomacy proffered by (among others) Mr. @dick_nixon:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_th…

(cont'd)

this is the other side of the "doublethink" required for fear-based Western foreign policy. "the West" poses as the only rational and sane force in the world—and yet we might go crazy any moment, and drop The Bomb™, and then won't everyone be sorry!

and it works!

(cont'd)

this justified the double war crime of #Hiroshima and #Nagasaki: the United States was determined to show Russia (not Japan, but Russia) that it was willing to do anything, no matter how ghastly and destructive, in order to succeed. the world's been scared ever since.

(cont'd)

I suppose it's only natural that, having decided upon *fear* as a centerpiece of foreign policy, the United States eventually converged upon fear as the centerpiece of domestic policy as well. it's the logic of authoritarians—"let them hate me so long as they fear me."

(cont'd)

bigotry is simply *fear* crystallized into a doctrine, a set of beliefs taken on faith—a pseudo-religion that tells its adherents who can be trusted and who can't be, i.e. whom to *fear*.

@NateSilver538 wants you *afraid* of "the Chinese", as a response to disease.

(cont'd)

@MattWalshBlog, @realchrisrufo, and all the other transphobic bigots want you *afraid* of people wearing the "wrong" clothes—partly because Christian parents (wearing the "right" clothes) are far more likely to be child molesters than drag performers and trans persons.

(cont'd)

it's easy for all these people to gin up fears constantly, because they're always afraid. fear of ruin drives @MattWalshBlog and @mtaibbi onward, a bountiful source of energy and frantic activity—and likely, they think they're at their best with their backs to the wall.

(cont'd)

meanwhile we have Robert Altman's "Secret Honor" running, and Philip Baker Hall is screaming at an unseen "Roberto" to be afraid of the liberals, and sticking up a microphone. why, it might be @mtaibbi or @ggreenwald, instead of an actor playing Nixon.

~Mona Drafter of Pnictogen