Who Should We Fear? Part 2

I put the question: Should we fear those who follow Trump?

Yes and no, I think. We should fear every person who intends to cast a vote for the unpresident and strive to change their minds if possible. Every vote that goes to Trump is one that doesn't go to Biden, and we need to work hard to keep those votes to a minimum.

Apart from their ability to cast dangerous votes, is this entire group fearsome? No. It contains friends and family members, whose choices I respect even though I haven't a clue why they've gone to the dark side. They're intelligent, usually reasonable people, but they've become misguided

Fear is one of Trump's primary weapons. He tries to conjure it out of the air with rumors of war and disease, with pronouncements on the impossibility of casting a secure vote, with predictions that our neighborhoods will soon be overrun with "undesirables" i.e. people who are not like us.

If we begin to believe the baseless and ridiculous threats Trump broadcasts, we will have lost. His strength is in the credulity of his followers. Somehow he finds a way to make the impossible and implausible seem real to them.

To give an example, a colleague was recently informed by a college student that COVID-19 is a hoax. He said this in all seriousness. Imagine a hoax that would involve the public health agencies of virtually every country in the world, millions of healthcare workers, the heads of state of all the major nations, NGOs, international aid agencies, and some 930,000 people worldwide willing to die for the cause. I think I might be frightened that someone could actually believe such a thing.

Some of Trump's followers are loud and boisterous and very visible in the news when there is a rally or a trouble spot somewhere. The crowd wearing the red MAGA shirt has become a "big they." Because they were in Portland doesn't mean they will be in Louisville; the fact that they were in Kenosha doesn't mean they'll be in Topeka. They are mot ubiquitous. Still, a friend of mine said recently that she wouldn't put a Biden sign out because "they" would vandalize it. Fear won that day.

Trump is a terrorist. He rules by spreading fear, rumors and uncertainty. His followers mindlessly spread it further, retweeting or sharing his words and ideas without thinking about them. 

It is the disease of false rumors and lies we must fear, not those who spread them. We must work to keep the truth alive, the lies tamped down, and the rumormongers muzzled.

FDR said it: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

 

--- Diogenes, 9/15/2020