Reply #13: Here's the thing about Iraq and war:

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The more scared people were, the more likely they would vote for Bush. That's just how fascism works.

The other half of it is that you have to convince people that Iraq was a mess AND you also have to convince people Bush is to blame. Now a problem is that part of the trick of arguing that Iraq is a mess is that you're also implying that things are dangerous, which builds up the fear of terrorisim, which helps Bush.

Last ten days of election: missing explosives + missing OBL = terror, right? People were scared.

Implicitly, somebody has fucked up if those two things have happened, but if it's just works to scare people, then it doesn't help Dems. PLUS, if nobody in the media is blaming Bush, then you really have a problem. You've basically spent a lot of time and energy helping Bush solidify his support among scared people.

This is why it's so hard to only talk about war all the time and beat people who live off fear.

I think the strategy should have been to tell people over and over again that they only should have feared fear, and that the best way for America to be strong and safe is to make sure that each individual American is strong and safe, and employed, creating wealth for society, and was happy and wise, and that any Republican who told you that you needed to expect less wasn't doing so to keep America safe.