{"id":19575,"date":"2015-03-23T08:39:59","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T12:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=19575"},"modified":"2015-03-23T08:40:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T12:40:27","slug":"why-do-they-want-us-to-think-our-world-is-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2015\/03\/23\/why-do-they-want-us-to-think-our-world-is-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do they want us to think our world is on fire?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Senator<\/a>

Senator Ted Cruz. Photo: Gage Skidmore<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

America’s first official 2016 presidential contender, Texas Republican Ted Cruz, went viral a couple of weeks ago with a video where he told audiences<\/a>, “The whole world’s on fire.\u00a0 The world is on fire, yes.\u00a0 Your world is on fire.”<\/p>\n

That video caught my eye same time that another clip was spreading fast on Facebook.\u00a0 It turns out Hollywood is preparing to release yet another end-times movie, this one a blockbuster treatment of a nation-destroying earthquake originating on the San Andreas fault in California.<\/p>\n

“We will<\/em> get hit again,” a wild-eyed actor promises.\u00a0 “And it’s going to be a bigger monster.”<\/p>\n

I’ve thought a lot and written a fair bit about this phenomenon before.\u00a0 Humans tend to be drawn to narratives about threat, disaster, and apocalypse.\u00a0 Whether it’s zombies or ebola plagues or Obamacare, there’s something in our reptiles brains that sparks in exciting ways when we’re confronted with the idea of primal threats to life and limb.<\/p>\n

But I think it’s important for Americans living in an increasingly saturated media world to be aware of this gloomy zeitgeist.\u00a0 Whether it’s our friends sharing Facebook messages about the deadly, imminent peril of terrorism or politicians hoping to link their fortunes to our fears, the end-times are in vogue right now.<\/p>\n

I think it’s also worth paying attention to the fact that, increasingly, a constant sense of overwhelming menace is big business for a lot of people.\u00a0 It’s unclear whether Senator Cruz will ever be president of the United States, but there’s no doubt but that the constant, pulse-pounding, the fuse-on-the-bomb-is-lit rhetoric has pushed him very close to the pinnacle of American politics.<\/p>\n

He’s not alone.\u00a0 Republicans who’ve struggled to articulate clear policy ideas that might provide an alternative to Barack Obama’s leadership instead default to what amounts to a breathless invitation to panic.\u00a0 How can we possibly talk about ideas or policies or practical alternatives when the sky is falling?\u00a0 How can you ask us to talk about the fine details of Social Security when we’re trying to save the world?<\/p>\n