Republicans running for Senate this year — Tom Cotton, Thom Tillis, but especially Scott Brown — have been running fear-mongering campaigns so egregious that they have become borderline farcical. As Greg Sargent highlights today at the Washington Post, Scott Brown has managed to twist the specters of ebola, ISIS, and border security together in a single answer hitting the Fox News Trifecta. Here’s what Brown told WGIR radio when asked whether he favored travel restrictions on passengers from West Africa:
We need a comprehensive approach and I think that should be part of it. I think it’s all connected. For example, we have people coming into our country by legal means bringing in diseases and other potential challenges. Yet we have a border that’s so porous that anyone can walk across it. I think it’s naive to think that people aren’t going to be walking through here who have those types of diseases and/or other types of intent, criminal or terrorist. And yet we do nothing to secure our border. It’s dangerous. And that’s the difference. I voted to secure it. Senator Shaheen has not.
That’s right — even though border security is at an all-time high, Scott Brown would have you believe that terrorists are freely strolling across the border with explosives in one hand and ebola in the other. It’s the kind of hyperbole that has been denounced as “irresponsible” and “wrong” and a distraction from problems that actually need to be addressed.
Republicans across the country are running on campaigns of fear, and according to Steve Benen at MSNBC, that means border, border, border talk, all the time:
But the more amusing takeaway is the degree to which the right wants to connect every story to its unrelated goal. Want to improve the economy? Secure the border. Want to fight terrorism? Secure the border. Worried about public health? Secure the border. Worried about crime? Secure the border.If you’ve got a problem, Republicans have a border that needs securing.
Ironically, the Senate immigration bill that passed last year would’ve increased border security by nearly $40 billion. It’s too bad House Republicans won’t pass it.
