Playing the Fear Card

We are not quite finished with the first decade of the 21st century, yet if there is one thing all of us have learned when it comes to communication and getting people to support various positions or take certain action, it is this: playing the "fear card" works very well. As a communicator, if you are able to make people afraid, then there is little doubt a significant portion of them will buy most anything you say even if it runs directly counter to such things as facts and reality. We all want to feel safe. Fear is a fundamental reaction that so often over powers logic or common sense. Consequently, to get people to jump through a hoop, all you have to do is convince them that not jumping that hoop will put them in danger.

The build-up to the Iraq conflict is a great example. We were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was an imminent threat to our security. As a result, the United States had no recourse other than to invade that country and overthrow its government. Enough people believed those lies to where the Bush administration felt justified in carrying out its plans. Fast-forward to the current debate over health care. It is one thing for people to question and even disagree with the prospects of universal health care. But given the facts that entering into such a program would only be optional and that, as it is being presented, would merely be an extension of what military personnel and veterans now have, does it really warrant comparing Obama and his administration to Hitler and the Nazi government of the 1930s and 1940s? Of course not. Such a comparison of course, is absurd. Yet a number of people are making it out of ignorance and, most of all, fear.

In the world of communication, playing the fear card when it is inappropriate and misrepresents the issue at-hand is certainly one way to play the game. But it is not the right or ethical way. It is short-sighted, manipulative and fundamentally dishonest. It is unfair to those to whom you are sending your message and a disservice to your client and to the specific issue. The end does not justify the means. Sadly, as we are seeing, there are those who disagree with that. So-called winning, to them and their clients, is everything. If efforts by the Obama administration to implement universal health care fail, then in large measure it will be due to dirty and unhealthy communication tactics. Shame on those who are behind those tactics and shame on those who are allowing themselves to be driven by them.