“Somethings wrong, shut the light, heavy thoughts tonight, and they aren't of Snow White. Dreams of war, dreams of liars, dreams of dragon's fire, and of things that will bite, sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight …” — Metallica, Enter Sandman
They are coming for your guns. The election is rigged. America is not great. Murderers, rapists, and other criminals are coming to take your job. Hillary Clinton will repeal the Second Amendment. Crooked Hillary! Lock her up!
These are just some of the things that Donald Trump has said in the past year while campaigning for president. He is selling the lie that America is some kind of dystopian society. Just look at his campaign ads: they don’t tell you anything that he is actually going to do for the country. All they do is tell us what bad shape our country is, and how bad Secretary Clinton is, and how America is some third-rate, two-bit banana republic.
America is not safe, according to Donald Trump:
Even though you have better odds of being killed by your TV set than you do of being killed by a terrorist.
In this ad, which looks like an old Soviet propaganda film, he makes Secretary Clinton appear to be sickly and weak. He makes the United States look like a third world country that cannot prevent invasions by foreign powers—powers that are of no threat to us.
Did you catch the tag line at 28 seconds? “Donald Trump will protect you. He is the only one who can.” That sounds like something an abuser says to someone he has been abusing. Granted, this is a man who once said he knows more than the generals. Let’s just assume he was referring to the Harlem Globetrotters’ former perennial doormat, the Washington Generals—because I am confident in saying that Donald Trump, who went to a military prep school and who never served in the military in any capacity, does not know more than a general who attended a service academy, ROTC, or OCS, who has commanded troops from platoons to divisions, and who has likely actually engaged in combat operations.
But I digress. He is selling fear, a fear that our military leadership is inept, and claiming that only he can fix it.
Of course Mr. Trump is not the only one selling fear this election cycle. The NRA is bolstering claims that Hillary Clinton and her Supreme Court nominees are a danger to the Second Amendment.
Of course, the Supreme Court and Secretary Clinton cannot overturn the Second Amendment. It would take two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of the states to ratify an amendment repealing the Second Amendment. Will a liberal court allow more firearms restrictions? Probably. But, as I have said in the past, no one is going to come door to door taking rifles and handguns. Of course before the court could even rule on gun control legislation, something would have to be enacted in order for them to rule on it.
Why are Mr. Trump, the NRA, and other surrogates selling fear? It is simply because they have no ideas. Build a wall, repeal Obamacare, destroy ISIS, and Make America Great Again are not ideas. There is no substance to any of them. It is all about using fear to control people.
Trump is a bully. As someone who in my youth was the victim of people much like him, I see the bully in him very clearly. He is no better than my childhood tormentors. He acts the same, talks the same, and uses the same tactics. It would be no surprise to find out that he beat kids up for their lunch money as a child (or that he does it in Trump Tower to his own employees). His power, or his perceived power, comes from fear. The reason his followers are so passionate and so quick to overlook his faults is that he has made them afraid. They believe only he can protect them. Unfortunately, it is him they should fear.
I prefer to vote for a candidate who does not sell unreasonable, unwarranted fear. Our 32nd president said it best during his first inaugural address:
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.
Trump is pushing nameless, unreasoned, unjustified terror in hopes of paralyzing this nation. We are better than his ugly rhetoric. It’s rhetoric that seeks to divide us, rhetoric that he thinks will divide and conquer the people of this nation—but it won’t.
We have seen this before. It may have been in a different country and in a different language, but we have seen this. And we are not falling for it.