You Can't Fight Fear with Fear

 

I'm excited to vote on Tuesday.  

Is excited the wrong word?  Maybe the word is eager, or anxious, or maybe desperate.  Whatever it is, I know I have to do it.  Maybe I am only one vote out of over a hundred and fifty million, but many snowflakes make a blizzard.  I have to make my voice heard.  I have to do my part.  I feel as if I am making a last ditch attempt to save something irrevocably lost.  I think this is what football players call a Hail Mary pass.  

Is this going to work? Worst of all, even if it does work, are there forces out there trying to undo it?

What has this country come to? Voting should be as easy as possible.  It is the right and responsibility of every American citizen. It is the cornerstone of democracy.  Nobody should try to stop us from doing our duty.  Yet here we are in the twenty-first century and it seems the government is doing everything it can to suppress the vote using every tactic possible from from ID laws, to gerrymandering, to reducing the number of polling places.  Voter suppression also comes from citizens trying to intimidate  other voters.  Even if my side wins, there are groups all over the country - with politicians who support them - who are armed and ready to fight and die to change the vote.

Here is the problem.  We have two groups of people in this country who fear the same thing.

The folks who stormed the Capitol, the hate groups that say they will revolt if Congress doesn't flip, the politicians who say they won't concede if they aren't elected, they are every bit as afraid as I am.

These voters, and maybe even some of the politicians (although I think most of them are lying in order to scare their constituents into not accepting voting results) are convinced with no doubts our elections are no longer secure.  They are unable to conceive of a world where their side doesn't win. They are so confident in not only the correctness of their positions, but also of the idea that their beliefs are a majority opinion.  

There are stereotypes about the kinds of people who feel this way (Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, QAnon, Threepers, and general MAGA subscribers).  They are seen as uneducated, poor, rural white people who have an ax to grind with the educated, the wealthy, the coastal dwellers, and the government.  Maybe this is part of the group, but it's not all of it.  I see successful, educated, middle-class coastal dwellers who have fallen for this idea that something has been taken from them.  They desperately want to believe Trump's lies.  They are people whom I would think would know better.  They are educated enough to understand critical thinking.  They area aware of the power of money in politics.  They are also fairly successful in life. Maybe they aren't wealthy, but they are solidly middle class and have good jobs.  Despite all of this, they are desperate to believe in Donald Trump and the whole MAGA movement.  

What do liberals fear.  They fear one party rule.  They fear an oligarchy that will kill all protections on our air and water and kill all protections of their savings and investments.  They fear a de facto apartheid system.  They fear further economic equality and disenfranchisement of the poor.  They fear the destruction of education and the infrastructure.  They fear a religious government that enforces laws according to fundamentalist Christian principles.  They fear that even if their side wins elections, politicians will use whatever means possible to change the vote count, and if that cant be done, their supporters will turn to violence.

Is this a legitimate fear?  Should I worry about chaos in the streets in November?  I saw Donald Trump make repeated challenges to the polls in so many states.  I saw January 6th.  I still see members of these radical groups saying they expect a civil war. I hear political experts say January 6th was merely a warm up to a bigger event.  I see the warnings from the FBI that right wing extremist groups are the biggest domestic terrorist threat the country faces.  Am I the only one who is afraid?

What do regressives fear?  They fear their way of life, however they define it, is being destroyed.  They fear the moral decline of the country and and eradication of their culture.  White regressives fear becoming a minority.  They fear the country is going to be a communist dystopia in the style of Venezuela or a repressive totalitarian state like China. They fear our elections are not honest.  They believe the vote has to be suppressed because people are voting illegally.  They are convinced of it.  They can't accept their side might could lose.  Trump has convinced them to not trust the facts, to never believe anything they learn outside their own information bubble.  

I know this is how they feel.  I am not going to invalidate that fear.  It's what they believe, and to them that fear is legitimate.  When I read online comments from regressives on social media, I feel that fear.  I understand it.  I may think they are ridiculous, but they think the same thing about me.  How can I fight that?  How can I not be terrified for the fate of this country when I know the other side is every bit as afraid as I am?

I suppose in the end, we all fear the same thing.  We all fear a repressive, totalitarian government.  One side fears a Christo-fascist oligarchy and the other fears a lawless, immoral communist state where Christianity is illegal.  In the end, they fear the same thing.  We all fear a loss of freedom.  We all fear the loss of our voices in government.  We all feel a loss of our own power and our own money.

If my side wins on Tuesday and the violent revolution comes to pass, it will take violent pushback from the government to put it down.  That doesn't appeal to my sense of liberty and justice.  I don't want the government killing citizens, even if I don't agree with them.  It seems to me even if I get what I want, I won't get what I want.  If the government starts shooting back, the regressives will have proved my point.

But I don't want their side in power either.  That's a road this country should never go down. 

The road ahead is dark and mysterious.  None of us knows what lies ahead.  All I can do is do my part and vote and wait.