I'm not sure I'd use the f-word, but I have certainly been exposed to the popular attitudes the article describes. There are people who would probably form a natural constituency for a politician who wanted to lock up dissenters and start putting a real hurtin' on some foreigners.
President Bush is not the leader these folks are looking for. He's no Woody Wilson, signing laws making it a crime to criticize the federal government's war policies. Bush is no FDR or Earl Warren, seeking to banish citizens from their homes and intern them in prison camps based solely on their ancestry. He's no Winston Churchill, willing to use methods of warfare that kill lots of civilians.
If a politician arose today like Wilson, FDR, Warren or Churchill advocating the roundup and imprisonment of Arab-Americans and critics of the war, as well as vicious warmaking tactics, the politician could rely on a following. I don't know how successful (s)he'd be, but he'd certainly make a splash.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 05:53 am (UTC)President Bush is not the leader these folks are looking for. He's no Woody Wilson, signing laws making it a crime to criticize the federal government's war policies. Bush is no FDR or Earl Warren, seeking to banish citizens from their homes and intern them in prison camps based solely on their ancestry. He's no Winston Churchill, willing to use methods of warfare that kill lots of civilians.
If a politician arose today like Wilson, FDR, Warren or Churchill advocating the roundup and imprisonment of Arab-Americans and critics of the war, as well as vicious warmaking tactics, the politician could rely on a following. I don't know how successful (s)he'd be, but he'd certainly make a splash.