The first Project Fear was run by Cameron during the Scottish Referendum. It led to Scotland staying in the UK, and the subsequent trouncing of the Tories and Labour in the last general elections. The Scottish Nationalists won almost every seat in that Kingdom. Labour was the loser. I don’t think Cameron was thinking that far down the track then; but winning Scotland gave him a win in the elections.
And losing Brexit may be the end of him. But the tactics have been plain from the beginning.
As with the Scottish referendum campaign, the In campaign will consist of vivid warnings about the dangers of voting to leave. In Scotland it was dubbed Project Fear, and that’s what Cameron is planning again. In theory, the Prime Minister has until the end of next year to call the referendum vote. In practice, he wants it over with. The polls suggest that it’s his to lose, the ‘In’ side is comfortably ahead at the moment — and the rule of thumb in referendums is that the change proposition, ‘Out’ in this case, needs to be ahead by double digits if the campaign is to win. But In’s advantage could evaporate with a new refugee crisis or a new eurozone crisis or both. Time, Cameron has decided, is now his enemy. He’d like to agree a deal, any deal, with the EU next month and hold the referendum in June — although this timetable may well slip, delaying the vote until September. The unofficial deadline has transformed government: the Prime Minister himself now never misses an opportunity to say that Britain should stay inside a reformed EU.
The campaign, though, is a little complicated for the PM. How can a self-described ‘Eurosceptic’ lead the effort to stay in the EU? How can the Prime Minister of a country whose recent success owes much to staying out of the single currency and the Schengen agreement argue that Britain must at all costs remain in the club that came up with these disastrous ideas? Many countries in Europe, whose leaders grew up in dictator-ship, cling to the EU project as the guarantor of their democracy. For most members, the European project has always been as much about geopolitics as economics. For the Poles, EU membership means a bulwark against the Russian menace; for the Greeks, it means no return to coups by colonels. But Britain has no dictatorial demons to hide from. If anything, Britain joined the then European Economic Community out of a fear of being left behind economically. When Cameron first declared his intention to hold an in-or-out referendum, he grasped this. EU membership was framed as an issue of prosperity. ‘Our participation in the single market, and our ability to help set its rules, is the principal reason for our membership,’ he said in his Bloomberg speech in 2013. But now even this argument looks shaky: given that Britain creates more jobs than the rest of the European Union put together, can he really argue that we need it for prosperity? Or that Britain, the world’s fifth — and soon to be fourth — largest economy, is somehow too small to go it alone?
This line was used in Scotland, and had some potency, given the amount of subsidy needed to balance its books, and the unanswered question about what an independent Scotland would have as its currency. But as one senior member of the government admitted in a more candid moment, the economic arguments for EU membership are now too finely balanced to be sure that they would deliver a referendum victory. So the Prime Minister has hit on one theme that does have force: whether Britain wants to go it alone in a dangerous and uncertain world.
It is not only the UK. Hillary is basically trying to use fear to get the Democrats to align behind her: her campaign will consist of warnings about Trump being a disaster.
That is good persuasion if you can pull it off because fear is a strong motivator. It is also a sharp pivot from Clinton’s prior approach of talking about her mastery of policy details, her experience, and her gender. Trump took her so-called “woman card” and turned it into a liability. So Clinton wisely pivoted. Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see Clinton’s numbers versus Trump improve in June, at least temporarily, until Trump finds a counter-move.
The only downside I can see to the new approach is that it is likely to trigger a race war in the United States. And I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms. (I’m called an “apologist” on Twitter, or sometimes just Joseph Goebbels).
If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind – as she is doing – and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader. I too would feel that way if an actual Hitler came to power in this country. I would join the resistance and try to take out the Hitler-like leader. You should do the same. No one wants an actual President Hitler.
So I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.
Hillary is tone-deaf. She as just told Donald Trump to delete his twitter account. That went down well.
The trouble is that both campaigns are completely economic. Man is but a cog in the machine: both of these establishment politicians function as Marxists. If the people are prosperous, all will be well.
Promise them a dole, the NHS (or Obamacare) and American Idol or the Eurosong contest. Keep people talking about Game of Thrones. Keep the Block on TV and in the newspapers. Ensure that the newspapers are an organ of the progressive elite, and as reliable as Pravda was under Stalin.
And ignore the race riots, the damage to those doing their job by the new immigrants who refuse to live in a country that has not their religious laws, and the mounting debt within the system. Assume that you can regulate all then all will be well.
This elite have no ideas.
All they have is project fear. They want you to despair. Do not. Choose a bit of risk, choose freedom, choose responsibility. Break the rules that stop you doing good. And pray that they repent, before they are swept away.
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