Fear is much easier to incite than any positive passion like hope, excitement or love. With fear, all you have to do is dangle it out there and people—mostly folks who are, I suspect, already deeply insecure—will bite.
It reminds me of Stephen King’s approach to engendering fear. He realized he can stir more fear by merely suggesting the presence of some horror than by actually showing it. That’s because we human beings are so good at filling in the gory details in our imaginations.
Of course, it helps to objectify and demonize the thing you want folks to be afraid of: Cujo, Christine, the Mist…immigrants, the media, smart people…
It’s easier to be against something that someone
else’s vision and hard work have created than it is
to do the work of creating something better yourself.
A CONSTRUCTIVE VISION
There’s another spineless premise at work in the republicans’ message. Attacking someone else—someone you portray as The Enemy—requires none of the clarity and courage it takes to say what it is you stand for. Easier, it seems, to be against something that someone else’s vision and hard work have created than it is to do the work of creating something better yourself.
Both these intertwined, negative attitudes—fear and negativism—are not only gutless, they’re lazy and undisciplined. They require no constructive imagination, no work whatsoever. And, worse than the ignorance inherent in them is the fact that the beliefs they rest on involve not defensible truths, but—to use their proponents’ own term—“alternative” facts.
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| ILLUSTRATION: iStock/dane_mark |
The problem we progressives face in coming elections is that we’ve found no one—yet—on the national level to lay out a vision of the kind of peaceful, prosperous future intelligence, creativity, joy and hope can inspire. Unlike fear, positive concepts like this have to be articulated. And they have to convince conservatives that being constructive just might address their complaints as well, or better than, being destructive.
Perhaps the most difficult nut to swallow, for both sides of the divide, is that the new, positive approach must embody a measure of reconciliation.
Not a person famous for nothing but fame
itself, but one with deep insight, an expansive
outlook and real integrity.
WHO WILL TURN THE TIDE?
During the disastrous second term of George W. Bush, the only solution I could imagine was for a charismatic leader to emerge who might articulate hope for a nation still on wobbly knees from 9/11. My prayers were answered.
Sadly, though President Obama embodied nearly everything we needed as a leader, he failed to use his eloquence to full advantage. And, for reasons I’m convinced the neo-cons are too smart to ever say out loud—though Trump is all but doing so for them—he was met with a degree of political rancor and obstruction one would have thought reserved for a true tyrant.
Once again I’m praying for a charismatic leader, one who can make the distinction between beliefs and facts, articulate a view of the future that doesn’t require Americans to talk circles around the values we know undergird this great country. Not a person famous for nothing but fame itself, but one with deep insight, an expansive outlook and real integrity. One with a deep, selfless love for both country and planet.
Tall order, right? I figure it won’t be the first time the loving power I call God has called on us to be his instruments in delivering a miracle. So please, please, even if you feel insignificant, even you’re deeply disillusioned with our political system, don’t give up. Come Tuesday, November 6, get out and VOTE! And while you’re at it, see if you can help a couple of other people who might otherwise not be voting to do so too.
We can do this…we must do this!
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