I'm Laughing at Tom Tancredo, Because SOMEONE HAS TO!

I recall a high school AP US History class discussion about the Cold War. I remember wondering what it must be like to live in a country fueled by that kind of terror and hysteria. Did they really force children to crawl under their desks and cover their heads in the hopes of staving off the effects of a nuclear attack? It seemed almost unimaginable, from my secure vantage point in an upper-class Southern California suburb, that there was ever a time in America when the fear of imminent destruction was so palpable.

Let's be honest: 2007 in the United States is not so much more dangerous than 1995. I haven't spent several hours scouring the Net for statistical evidence to back this up, but I'm guessing that, even if you factor in 9/11, I'm not at a significantly greater risk of being murdered by a foreign national now than I was 12 years ago. Yet we're right back to that old-school hysteria. I don't need to imagine what it must be like to live amongst a people cowering in constant fear of foreign invasion and terrorism; I'm living amongst these people right now.

And let me tell you, it's horrible. Not because I'm constantly afraid like so many of my countrymen, mind you. At least, I'm not constantly afraid of dirty bombs and brown people. But because it's just depressing to see Americans wallow in anxious despair like this, for this long. A few weeks after 9/11? Okay, fine, be afraid, think about the ramifications of an attack on U.S. soil.

But it's years and years later, we clearly have no immediate outside threat bearing down on us (that isn't environmental, that is). The drumbeat of terror-related panic, at this point, has morphed in a particularly ugly, futile strain of self-pity. "Oh, woe is us, people don't like us! The crazy president of Iran said he wishes we didn't even exist any more! There's questionable types coming across our border with backpacks! Boo hoo hoo!"

It's fucking pathetic. Seriously. And, as I find myself repeating more and more these days, no one is more pathetic than Republican Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo. NO ONE.



I mean, it's not just a disgusting attempt to manipulate simpletons. It's a POORLY DONE disgusting attempt to manipulate simpletons. This ad's more thrown-together and crudely-realized than "Turkish Star Wars." I mean, Tommy, you're running a national campaign for President, not a late-night public access chat show.