This feels like the get-out clause from heck. He didn't care that his line of argument was destructive, and he had a lawyer-thin "but I didn't mean it" escape hatch. He also had a pulpit, mass-market reach. He turned it into a bit of a bully-pulpit.

But the effect of state of fear was small I think. Reality asserted itself: there was no grant conspiracy, we don't use vibra-belts from failed west coast gyms to try and shake a quake out of PNG islands, the cannibals retreated into the hills and eat each other when dead, not alive, carbon fibre spools are used to short out Iraqi power stations, not to make lightning target campers...