We have something to fear from fear-mongering itself

I don't want to exaggerate the importance of the death threats being made against congressmen who voted for health-care reform. Nuts are nuts. But there is a danger to the sort of rhetoric the GOP has used over the past few months. When Rep. Devin Nunes begs his colleagues to say "no to socialism, no to totalitarianism and no to this bill"; when Glenn Beck says the bill "is the end of America as you know it"; when Sarah Palin says the bill has "death panels" -- that stuff matters.

I remember listening to the debate the night the House passed the Senate bill and the reconciliation fixes. There are a lot of critiques I could imagine folks on the right making of the legislation. "Regulations to define a minimum insurance benefit will impede innovation in low-deductible plans." "Congress doesn't have the will to stick to the cost savings, and until they prove able to do so, we can't pass a new health-care entitlement." "The health-care system is broken, and adding a new benefit doesn't make sense outside the context of radical reform, as it will just create a new set of stakeholders who will resist the necessary changes."

But totalitarianism? Death panels? The end of America as we know it? These critiques aren't just wrong in their description of a cautious, compromised reform that uses private insurers and spends only 4 percent of what we spend on health care in an average year. They're shocking in terms of what the speakers believe their colleagues and representatives are willing to do to the American people. Nunes, for instance, has served with Democrats for decades. He might believe them too willing to tax society's most-productive members to fund social benefits. But does he really believe them friends of totalitarianism?

And the stuff on talk radio, of course, was worse. So take the universe of people who really respect right-wing politicians and listen to right-wing media. Most of them will hear this stuff and turn against the bill. Some will hear this stuff and really be afraid of the bill. And then a small group will hear this stuff and believe it and wonder whether they need to do something more significant to stop this bill from becoming law. And then a couple will actually follow through. And one will cut the gas lines leading to house of Rep. Tom Perriello's brother after seeing a tea partyer post the address online.

Few of us are on a mountain with this stuff, of course. Many condemned me for saying that Joe Lieberman was willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands to settle an old grudge with liberals when he threatened to blow up the bill if the Medicare buy-in wasn't removed. I'll stand by the math of the comment, and the analysis of Lieberman's motivations, but I certainly wish I had phrased it somewhat more delicately. The word "cause" was ill-advised.

Still, that wasn't the tone of this blog over the past couple of months, nor of most outlets. Some politicians and media figures, however, have been in the business of ratcheting up opposition by making people afraid. But you can't count on people to simply cower when they're afraid, or write letters to the editor. Sometimes, they fight. It's a dangerous emotion, and high as the stakes are, public figures need to be a lot more careful manipulating it.

Photo credit: Melina Mara/The Washington Post.