David Hirzel/My Turn
The coming presidential election has got to be the most rancorous in living memory, with the bulk of the rancor coming from only one side. Looking back to Trump’s inaugural speech in 2017, he referred to “American carnage”—meaning the failures of previous administrations to support and protect disenfranchised working-class citizens. “We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny,” he said.
Like almost everything else he says and promises, he did not really mean that. But he did mean to instill fear into those who do not support his agenda. As the 2020 election day draws ever nearer, he uses the platform of the White House to raise the specter of ever more unlikely outcomes should his opponent secure a majority of electoral votes in addition to the anticipated clear majority of popular votes.
The hyperbole is deafening.
Despite his dire warnings, a democratic victory will not “destroy our suburbs.” “Your children will be robbed of their future,” he warned a group of supporters in Ohio. “The damage will endure for generations to come. We have to win.” “I won’t let them take away our guns!” a callout to an underground army training with assault weapons in the woods told to “stand down” to await, presumably, the call up to stop the depredations of liberalism. If you really want to hear more along this line, stay tuned to Fox News.
But if you look elsewhere, you will notice no such politics of fear coming from the democratic side. You will not hear Biden and Harris issuing comparable warnings about the results should Trump continue another four years. They don’t have to. All the democrats have to do is point to the president’s record.
Here’s the other side of that fear—that a second Trump administration will succeed in making good on the failures of the first. Whatever good the ACA has done for the mass of American’s whose paychecks do not extend far enough to include health insurance, will be beyond their reach if he has his way. If you really believe that science has no place in policy, and it is better to risk contracting COVID-19 by freely ignoring the medical advice of the best epidemiologist, you know who believes the same way. If you happen to be Black, or Latinx, or Asian, or any other ethnic background than White, and you are fine with the wealth of America going to serve the whims and luxuries of those who need it least, well you know how to vote to continue that inequity.
If you want to have a commander in chief of the army who can’t understand why anyone would want to be a soldier, who’s willing to cozy up with dictators around the world, Trump is your man. When it comes to the politics of fear, he is the one who wants to distract the electorate with alarming portents on the unknown and unknowable future.
The real threat is a bleak repeat of the past four years, four years in which he squandered his chance to make the changes he promised, and to bring an end to the “American carnage” that is today worse that it was when he first spoke those words.
David Hirzel is a Bay Area author and frequent op-ed contributor to Marinscope Community Newspaper. Anyone interested in writing a My Turn essay may contact editor Sherm Frederick at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)
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