LBJ School News Brief

September 4, 2004

The Presidential Election:
Is fear driving
our choices?

In the wake of a Republication convention that focused on war, terrorism and national security, policy experts at the LBJ School of Public Affairs were asked the question, is fear driving voters’ choices in the presidential election? Their answer was an emphatic yes. While they offer diverse explanations, they agree that grounded discussions on specific policy issues have taken a back seat to emotionally charged campaign rhetoric.

Bill Black
A former federal litigator with expertise in corporate fraud, corruption and financial services industry regulation.

Based on U.S. history, Bush should be losing by a landslide in the polls. Instead, he is in a statistical dead heat. I believe that fear is one of the three primary explanations for this anomaly.

Why should Bush be losing badly in the polls? He has had very poor international and domestic results. His invasion of Afghanistan was an initial success, but he turned it into a badly tarnished minor victory through ineptitude. Objectively, the invasion of Iraq has been a terrible miscalculation. It has made America less secure, less powerful, more hated and it has maimed thousands of Americans and allies and killed roughly one thousand. This, of course, ignores civilian losses. Worse, Bush took us to war under premises that proved inaccurate. The domestic results are also disappointing. Job growth over the length of his term is non-existent. While there is finally some recovery, it is very weak by historical standards. If Americans reacted in class terms, Bush would also be in immense trouble because of the precipitous rise in income inequality, largely as a result of his policies.

Why then isn't Bush losing badly in the polls? First, the nation is more polarized than at anytime in my life. Bush's base may not vote for him, but they will not vote for Kerry. Polarization greatly increases cognitive dissonance. Bush's base rarely reads/hears harsh criticism of Bush and easily ignores the remainder. Second, we have a volunteer army and tight controls on the media (combined with the shift of mainstream media to the right) that mean that disastrous military mistakes are not brought home forcefully to the public. We are a very large and extraordinarily wealthy nation. Our casualties are tiny relative to our population and unemployment is only common among African-Americans. The vast bulk of Americans work. Third, the nation has always become unbalanced when it was deeply afraid and Americans have objective reasons to fear. There was zero basis for the internment of Japanese-Americans in WW II, but we lose sight now of how popular the internment was with the public.

Howard Prince
A behavioral psychologist and expert in leadership education who serves as Director of the LBJ School Center for Ethical Leadership.

In times of crisis many people become more willing to accept strong leadership, indeed, even to expect such leadership, as a way to help the followers cope with their fears and the uncertainty they face. A crisis is an opportunity for principled leaders to respond authentically to meet real follower needs and mobilize support for an effective response. The response of President Bush and Mayor Giuliani in the days following September 11, 2001, is a good recent example of leaders providing comfort, reassurance, courage and resolve in responding to the attacks by al-Quaeda on the World Trade Center. A crisis is also an opportunity for less scrupulous leaders to take advantage of follower dependency and to mislead those who put their trust in the strong leader.

Turning to the present, the war against Islamic jihadists has been waged overseas since the invasion of Afghanistan and, with the exception of the nuisances we experience when traveling by air, most Americans do not experience danger as immediate in their day-to-day lives. So one of the leadership challenges for both candidates is to realistically portray the protracted nature of the war against the Islamic jihadists without inducing an overreaction or even panic. The so-called war on terrorism is, if not the central issue of the upcoming election, one of the two most important issues, the other being the economy. Leaders and followers both have important roles to play as we decide as a nation how to respond to new and serious threats to our security.

Ed Dorn, Dean
A former Undersecretary of Defense with expertise in campaign strategy, civil rights, national security and the military.

Politicians try to play on all the emotions -- hope, fear, prejudice, patriotism. In the 1950s and 1960s, virtually all presidential candidates played heavily on the fear of the communist menace. Today, terrorism has replaced communism as the major fear factor in American electoral politics.

When people are fearful of attack, they will look to existing authorities to protect them. Advantage, Bush. When people are fearful of losing their jobs, they are likely to blame the existing authorities for the economic slump. Advantage, Kerry. To date, the public has not become exercised over the threats to privacy and liberty posed by the way we are fighting the war on terror.

4 September 2004

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