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The fear of a Fear Administration

In President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural address he stated that “We have nothing to Fear but Fear itself!”  Years later, the politics of fear consume the US presidential election.  It seems that we have not learned a damn thing!  Fear hovers over this election like a large dark gloomy cloud.  One thing that I have learned is that if one Candidate embraces it, it just continues to grow and it cannot be ignored.  The commercials and the rallies for Trump often say that he is the only one who can save us and that the U. S. and the world is unraveling.  One commercial says that no one else stands between us and chaos but Donald Trump.  Really, he is the only one??  Is the world really going to hell and a hand basket?

Speaking of baskets, Trump has also brought baggage fear.  For example, the idea of Nationalists and the KKK re-entering in mainstream society.  Whether he wants to be or not, White Supremacists see him as their candidate.  This is becoming a real fear that has real questions that need to be answered.  This is only one set of fear baggage that comes with a Trump administration.  Will hate crimes be treated the same way they are under a Trump administration?  Granted, minorities aren’t happy with the way they are treated now, but it could be worse.  We could lose the progress that we have made.  There was a time that hate crimes occurred and there was no investigation or really any type of trial.  Medgar Evars was assassinated in 1963.  There were two hung jury trials in 1963 and 1964.  The actual trial did not occur until 1994.  The white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith lived as a free man until 1994.  It took 30 years for a murderer to be brought to justice, because he murdered a black man.  But, this was just one man; many people were never brought to justice.  Can our country go back to this treatment?  I used African Americans as an example, but I would be writing forever if I provided examples for every group that has had to fight for fair treatment.  Will more mothers experience pain similar to Mamie Carthan Till-Mobley.  This sounds extreme, but freedom in many ways is also like Pandora’s box, it is hard to restrict people after they have experienced it.  Emmit Till made an innocent mistake.  He didn’t understand the time and his environment and he paid for it with his life. We are asking Generation X and the Millennials to go back to the way things were.  Some Gen Xers remember, but they were kids, and the Millennials have no idea of what it was like.  They have only experienced that type of racism and freedom suppression in books and videos.

Many people threaten that there will be revolution if Hillary wins.  But, we need to be honest, a revolution has already started.  People are taking sides and the tension between both sides has started ending friendships.  Are families next?  Has it started?  We forget families fought against each other in the civil war.  And if Trump loses, what will this revolution be about?  A recount?  An immediate installation of ruler Trump?  An end to Democracy?  What??!!  

Many people on the other side threaten to leave the country if Trump wins.  But let’s be honest, will we really all leave?  Or, will there still be a revolution.  If so, will we be fighting for? 

There is fear on both sides.  And I am afraid of the fear.  And even though Trump opened this Pandora’s box, he nor Hillary can close it.  It is too big.  The only ones who have the strength to close it are the American people.  But, will they be too afraid to do so.