The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
No, really. Maybe it’s the aging body or the aging mind or the lack of sleep. Maybe it’s too many six packs in the fridge and not enough on the abs. Whatever the reason, I have become either desensitized or insensitive or perhaps indifferent — because despite all the desperate urging from our political parties, I just don’t feel that much fear.
Not that the Republicans didn’t try their best during last week’s Zombie Apocalypse of a convention. Not that Donald Trump hasn’t tried his best throughout the campaign. We have been told that we should fear others, particularly if they are Muslim or Hispanic. We have been told that America isn’t great. We have been told that our country is on the verge of collapse and disintegration, which might come as news to anybody comparing its current condition to that of eight years ago.
In other words, we have been told that we should be afraid.
So there was Trump on Thursday, hammering home that message with what has been dubbed the “order and border” speech. By one count, he said the word “order” seven times and uttered the word “border” on nine occasions, as in “I am the law and order candidate” and “we are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration.”
Certainly, there is a need for law and order; it is the difference between civilization and the “Lord of the Flies.” And, yes, if we have laws governing who should be allowed to enter the country, those laws should be enforced.
But it seems that rather than argue about policy or put forth ideas, Republicans have devolved to a place where the Politics of Fear has supplanted any thoughtfulness. Where style has (pun alert!) trumped substance. Where an appeal to our most basic and most primitive sensibilities is viewed as a campaign strategy.
Truth gives way to fear
To quote a friend of mine, because I could not have said it better: “I am literally sick to my stomach watching the Republican Party — the great party of Lincoln and Reagan and my party since 1984 — nominate this deranged, egomaniacal, bigoted buffoon to be its nominee. Yes, Hillary Clinton is a corrupt, callous liar who is also unworthy of the presidency, but it is hard to argue that Trump is the lesser of these two evils. As soon as he gets to 1,237 delegates, I am officially a former Republican.”
Through it all, I have grown weary of this Politics of Fear.
Oh, Democrats embrace it, as well. As a general rule, they insist that global warming will lead to the death of us all, or that rogue police officers are out to get us.
Yet it is the Republicans who have packaged this strategy as so much snake oil. As Charles P. Pierce assessed Trump’s speech for Esquire: “The facts did not matter to the people here. The Voice was all that mattered. The truth did not matter. Volume was all that mattered. Reality did not matter. Fear of the imagined criminal Other mattered. Abandoned and unfocused wrath mattered. What ultimately mattered was fashioning actual freedom into a quaking shadow of itself.”
For those who are still interested in facts: Violent crime has declined throughout Obama’s presidency, as it steadily has for the past 20 years. And overall, the economy is much better off than it was when George W. Bush left office. And nobody, not even Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton, has recommended the confiscation of your guns.
As for plagues and locusts, well, the statistics aren’t in on those yet — and that leaves the Republicans to convince us that plagues and locusts are an imminent threat to our well-being.
That is the part that is perplexing and frustrating. Because the base of the Republican Party, the people who long have bellowed loudest about the greatness of the United States and the resilient brilliance of her citizens, those who have bowed at the altar of the “shining city on a hill,” have become those who have the least faith in this nation.
And that might be something to fear.
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