“The only thing that we have to fear is…fear itself.”
The words of Franklin Roosevelt, almost 90 years ago, remain true today.
Fear is always with us, all the time. Some (like me) react to fear by acting out, by yelling or (even) committing acts of violence. Others react in the opposite way, withdrawing from argument, even from the world.
Fear is a great weapon. Overcoming fear is a superpower. This is a time to test that superpower.
Having lost all rational argument, Republicans have decided on fear as their 2022 platform. Fear doesn’t have to be real to be powerful. Rainbow fentanyl may be no more real than monsters under the bed. What matters is keeping up the scare and getting fearful people to do what the fear merchants want.
Those of a liberal or rational bent don’t react well to fear. We like to think that people are generally good, and they are. But fear is as human as courage and far more common.
Some react to this fear with their own fear, making their friends and neighbors fear the fearful. Others hide in their homes, in their rooms, and close themselves off from the news. Both these reactions are fine with the fear merchants.
There’s another way. It’s a harder way. But it’s the only way.
That is resolution. Ukraine, and Ukrainians, have been demonstrating this all year, in the face of the horrors and atrocities and death from war. In the face of the coming winter their president, the Churchill of our time, said it better from inside the lion’s mouth.
Americans need Ukrainian courage, but all we need do with it is make certain we vote and trust our electoral system to count those votes correctly. Right now, everything depends on our willingness and ability to face fear, to acknowledge fear, and to reject it.
The physical war in Europe, the economic war in Asia, they’re matched by the unrelenting psychological war America has been under since Putin sent Trump down the escalator. Things are scary right now, the outlook uncertain. There are real bogeymen around us, and some are our neighbors.
But yelling won’t help. Withdrawing won’t help. We must do the hard thing and face our fears.
