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More like petrified. Consider this- You live in a neighborhood that used to be pretty high class, some crime but not too much, and that kept pretty well under wraps. Crime was usually something that happened to someone else-people who lived in the more marginal areas, who engaged in questionable activities which you could only imagine, not knowing any of them personally. Your neighborhood is now visibly gone downhill, still looking pretty good from a distance but growing shoddy at the corners, noisier, rougher and the crime rate, especially violent crime, has gone sky high. You've bought a gun-for the first time in your adult life-and live alone even in crowds because people have gotten nervous and careful about what they say and whom they talk to.
You live alone and have been spending a lot more time by yourself, watching too much Forensic Files and other murder stuff on TV. Awakening from a troubled half sleep, you hear heavy, measured footsteps coming down the hall toward your bedroom. The bloodless panic that rises in your throat when you realize that the only weapon at your command is out of reach, under the couch, in the living room.
That's the kind of fear that besets republicans. They know the neighborhood is shot to hell but they can't understand why--after all, they have been doing everything they know how--all the "conservative" stuff that should cure the problems, spare the rod and spoil the child on a global scale, just isn't working. All the positive thinking classes, all the "fake it 'till you make it" slogans that the thousands of visiting speakers from all the major league pitchers' assistance groups peddle just aren't fooling anyone but you.
There's no option that includes letting go of the crap that you just "know" will fix it if you just do it long enough hard enough because that would be the same as killing yourself. your very survival depends on the fundamental rightness of the "common sense" incantations that you have learned and constructed your self around. Liberals are nuts, mentally and emotionally unstable, unspeakable nasty things that think two men fucking each other and not being ashamed of it is nothing remarkable, a "different strokes for different folks" kind of thing.
The only tool left to a panic stricken republican is to kill them before they kill you. The MONSTER is plodding down the hall; all the bad dreams are coming true and, "YOU CAN'T GET THOSE STUPID DEMOCRATS TO UNDERSTAND THE HORRIBLE DANGER WE'RE IN!!"
Republicans are dangerous, like unexploded ordnance from world war II, unearthed by the plumber in the backyard. They're apt to explode at any instant, without warning, and could take the neighborhood with them.
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