Soft-thinking on "Softs" and Hards"

Last week, The New Republic posted a rather feisty piece by Peter Beinart, suggesting that Democrats have performed so poorly in recent elections, and will continue to do so, because the party's liberal base has not adjusted its worldview in the wake of September 11th. The principle comparison Beinart repeatedly draws in the article is that of modern lefties ignoring the Islamo-fascist scourge to old lefties cuddling up to Communism.
I reject this argument because it's patently wrong. I hope I'm not the only one who recognizes the difference in the historical examples. Soviet Russia was an empire, a victor in a World War that left half of Europe under its thumb and half of Europe fearing that any day might bring the rumble of Red tanks. The Soviets had a thousand-warhead strong nuclear arsenal, and the bombers, boomers, and ICBMs to deliver the goods. The also had on their side Communism, an ideology that found sympathetic ears in nations the world over, including the factories of America, where it took the nasty Joseph McCarthy to eliminate Communism as a viable political belief system. In the postwar US, it was reasonable to fear invasion, nuclear war, and Communist revolution.
In the post-September 11th US, it is not clear if we are the more victimized by terrorists or by our own government. How many American lives were lost last year to terrorism (outside of Iraq)? How about the year before? It is true that in 2001, almost 3,000 Americans died from terrorism, but in the ten years before that combined, had even 500 lost their lives? Michael Moore is not wrong when he says that terrorism is no more a danger than automobile accidents or pneumonia. In terms of fatalities, it's many times less a danger. That so many American voters place such emphasis on the struggle against terrorism is a result of the way in which the Bush Administration has manipulated public sentiment in a harmful way.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a liberal hawk, someone who has long believed that American power should be used to spread Democracy and prosperity. I also recognize the dreadfully illiberal ideology of Muslim fanatics, the attractiveness of their message for many individuals, the harm illiberal regimes can do to their citizens, and the threat, though it be small, of terrorism against nations outside the Middle East. But I also believe in having an honest discussion about matters political, and for Peter Beinart to suggest that the Dems need to get harder to win elections is to say the Dems need to be every bit as misleading as Republicans to get elected. Which may be true, but is not to be desired, and it probably shouldn't be called a new liberalism either.
It was absolutely right to deal with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. That state represented a safe harbor for terrorists from which Al Qaida could have planned more serious attacks. That Bush has failed to adequately secure Afghanistan speaks to a lack of seriousness on this issue that should have harmed him in elections, but did not. Meanwhile, it is completely unacceptable that so many Americans still believe Saddam and Osama worked together to attack the US. There is a lingering ignorance about foreign affairs in this country, and adopting the language of the Bushies is not going to solve that problem. Kerry spoke repeatedly and seriously about Bush's inability to catch Osama, to secure the nation's ports and cargo holds, and stem weapons proliferation, and it did him no good. Perhaps it would have been better for him to say, we're going to pay terrorists the attention they deserve, and meanwhile focus on fighting illiberalism, injustice, poverty, and the rest. I doubt it, though. Democrats can't win on terrorism, because the discussion is no longer based in reality.
There is a terrorist threat in America, but it is minute. We should be pressing toward democracy abroad both for selfish reasons and because it is the right thing to do, not because Islamist devastation hangs over our head like the Red Menace once did.
In America's current political climate, it is suicide to question the seriousness of the terrorist threat, and it would be wise for American citizens to ask why that should be the case. The ability of political actors, journalists and private citizens to speak about political issues honestly has been damaged by Administration propaganda. I live in DC, a target for terrorists if ever there was one, and I'm much more frightened by the fact that so many Americans continue to believe we've found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq than I am by a terrorist attack.