Mother Jones
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On Sunday night, President Barack Obama gave a speech on terrorism that the New York Times cast as an effort “to calm jittery Americans after the terrorist attack last week” in San Bernardino, California. But can Obama accomplish that mission? That is, can any president, with words, ease public anxiety over this sort of act? And, perhaps more important, how much can any president do to prevent a repeat of that horror?
In a highly political season—as Republican presidential candidates desperately maneuver for advantage before the voting starts in their party’s primaries and caucuses—Obama has a tough task: to present the campaign against ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other extremists in the proper context. A recent MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist poll—which was taken before the San Bernardino attack but after the Paris attacks and the Planned Parenthood shootings in Colorado—found that the biggest concern for many Americans was being a victim of terrorism. Thirty-six percent tagged terrorism as their top concern, and 31 percent said gun violence. (Six out of ten Republicans said terrorism was their greatest fear; only 22 percent of Democrats felt that way.) This poll also discovered that jobs and the economy ranked as the most important issue for voters when it comes to picking a president (28 percent), while terrorism placed second (15 percent).
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