Frank Rich on the National Circus: Ebola Panic Is Straight From the Twilight Zone

In the two weeks since the death of Thomas Eric Duncan, Ebola hysteria has taken hold in some corners of the U.S., with school closures, paid leaves, and cruise ship quarantines enacted to protect the populace from dozens of people who did not actually have the disease. So far, only two people we know of have been infected by Ebola on U.S. soil (both were nurses who treated Duncan), public health officials have offered clear and consistent explanations of the minimal risks of contracting the disease, and even Fox News — or, at least, Fox News anchor Shep Smith — has tried to quell the panic. Why are Americans still so worked up about this?

Of all the incidents of runaway Ebola hysteria in America, the one that most grabbed me was reported by the Times on Sunday: A man in Payson, Arizona, decided to submit to a self-imposed quarantine and remain in his house for no other reason than he had been in Liberia as a missionary on a church trip. His good deed did not go unpunished: After taking that extra (and gratuitous) precaution, he found himself the victim of a “lynch-mob mentality” manifested by at least one anonymous threat to burn down his house. The incident made me think of that classic 1960 Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” in which paranoid suburban neighbors, gripped by fear of an invasion from outer space, do the monsters’ work for them by destroying their community and each other in mob violence.