How Repug Fear Infantalizes Us

I am continually stunned by how people who lived through World War II and the Cold War - genuine existential threats to our democracy let alone existence - can with a straight face demand hysterical overreaction to a bunch of antediluvian goat-fuckers in the desert.

Digby:

"Nothing matter is we aren't safe..." There you go. That excuses any breach of human decency, law and norm. Because I hate to break the news to people, you will never be perfectly safe. We used to be a mature enough society to understand that. But now that we have the Daddy Party infantilizing us, a whole lot of Americans are so easily frightened they just want to suck their thumbs and hear a nice bedtime story about what good girls and boys they are.

Charlie Pierce:

The fact is that a lot of things "matter" even if we're not "safe." Climate change matters. Income inequality matters. Poverty matters. They "mattered" before September 11, 2001 and they "mattered" afterwards and they "matter" now. (They "mattered" before and after the Oklahoma City bombing, for all that. And Lincoln expanded higher education and built the intercontinental railroad with the goddamn Army Of Northern Virginia a few days' march down the road from Washington. They "mattered," too. So did the war. America used to be like that.) If "nothing matters if we aren't safe," then everything is up for grabs if and when some lunatic decides to demonstrate that we're not. Marco Rubio wants to lead a fearful nation. Fine. Let him go find one.