Jeffrey Feldman

Facelift For The Fear Frame

Now that trashing Bush on TV is de rigueur for GOP presidential wannabes, one might think that the right-wing rhetoric of fear and violence might fall by the wayside, too. Guess again.

Rather than dump that old Bush-Cheney bunk about a vote for the Democrats being a vote for nuclear annihilation by "terrorists," many Republicans are framing the debate with a new word: "Jihadism."

Tuesday night's Republican "debate" on CNN was chock full of attempts by the candidates to say "Jihadism" and "Jihadist" as much as posible, often coupled with direct jabs at the competence of the Bush administration and--no big shocker,here--at the credibility of the Democrats.

And here we see the crux of the matter on this word shift: Republicans are still working with campaign consultants pushing the fear frame as best path to the victory in 2008, but they are increasingly aware that looking and sounding like George W. Bush is a one-way ticket to wikipedia obscurity, not the White House.

Given this dilemma, whatever is today's Machiavellian authoritarian with presidential ambitions to do?

Why...switch the debate on Iraq from a "war on" an evil tactic ( e.g., terrorism) to a "war on" an evil culture (e.g. Jihadism), of course!...[Open in new window]