Sen. Thompson’s warning about dissent: ‘Be afraid. Be very afraid.’

You’re a manufacturer of automotive tires. You want to sell as many as possible. So you stick a baby atop a stack of tires in a TV ad, subtly suggesting to viewers that if they don’t buy your tires, the baby will get whacked. That’s the fear card.

You own an insurance company. You want to sell as many policies as possible. You do ads on TV that not so subtly tell viewers that without your company’s insurance coverage, they will be bankrupt, bereft of health — or dead. That, too, is the fear card.

Selling goods and services through the device of fear is standard fare in advertising. That’s true in politics as well. Remember that famous Michael Douglas speech in “The American President” about his opponent?

And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.

In at-last-he’s-a-presidential-candidate Fred Thompson’s first full television interview on Sept. 7, he pulled out the fear card, saying, in effect, “We should be afraid, and it’s the fault of dissenters.”

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