Both presidential campaigns, it seems, are plucking the same emotional chord: Fear.
Donald Trump’s convention speech was a compendium of horrors. It pointed to increasing violence (by the “other”), enemies within (the “other”), threats to our existence (from the “other”), and so on. It was a scary picture, not entirely without basis. It's true, for example, that homicides have increased in some urban areas. Even so, the speech was at odds with the big picture and therefore misleading. Its recurring theme, moreover, invoked dog-whistles to bigotry. Behind every threat, in his view, is an “other” to be eliminated, deported, walled out, waterboarded – whatever it takes.
Unfortunately, Trump’s view of America is one that far too many people, largely white men without college degrees, share. That America, they believe, does not protect them from the “other.” Trump promises to allay their fears and restore an America that once was “great,” that is, an America that blinked at and even institutionalized their sexism and racism.
The Trump campaign, then, is the politics of revenge against the perceived betrayal of an America that no longer tilts uncritically toward white male privilege. As such, the campaign is a devil’s brew of irrational and uninformed fear, simmering anger and truculent demagoguery. We’ve seen such dangerous concoctions in other civilized societies, notably post-World War I Germany and the resulting rise of Adolf Hitler. Lesson: Don’t assume it can’t happen here. History says it can.
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Hillary Clinton’s convention speech posed a contrasting premise. She and her surrogates proclaimed the United States is as strong and prosperous as it’s ever been. What's more, they said, working together we can look forward to an even brighter future for everyone, white males included. Sure, there are inequalities and inequities needing to be fixed. But the trend is unmistakable: We’re headed in a hopeful direction. Nothing to fear. Elect us …
… because, if you don’t, the gates of Hell will spew forth Donald Trump and his ignorant, racist, coarse and incompetent assault on all things decent. A bit florid and overwrought, you say? The evidence suggests not so much, if at all.
In other words, while Trump’s politics rests on irrational fears and voter ignorance, the Clinton campaign is based, in large part, on an informed and mostly rational fear of Trump himself and what a Trump presidency would entail. This view of things, mind you, is not your usual partisan rant. Increasingly large numbers of Republican leaders and voters express a similar perspective.
What we have then, in effect, is a presidential campaign that boils down to a battle, not merely between candidates and political parties, but between hugely contrasting fears. Talk about scary.
But, here's what’s really scary. Donald Trump is betting that racial injustice, our nation’s tortured-child-in-the-basement “secret” (see previous column below), will remain just that: a fixed subterranean flaw in our national character, available for cynical exploitation by anyone (such as Donald Trump) seeking political power at any cost. Demagoguery 101.
In his warped view, the “good guys” are those who a) know the secret, b) agree to keep it underground as a condition for preserving their white male privilege, and c) deny all the while that such a thing as "white privilege" even exists! It’s the Faustian bargain that’s been operational since our nation’s founding. Trump is counting on its continuation and on the rest of us to keep quiet about it.
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It matters not to Donald Trump that the “secret," the massive structural injustice of racism, poisons our nation’s soul. The shameful reality is that the election of a black man as president only partially countered that poison. Ceaseless efforts to delegitimize Barack Obama's presidency exposed with searing clarity the poison’s continuing debilitating effects on our democracy, its politics and its civic discourse. And, yes, not least of all, it inflicted us with Donald Trump.
Perhaps most important, though, Obama's election also showed that the secret itself is no longer safe. The tortured child in the basement, now emerging, is not going back. That's partly why Trump's followers are rightfully scared. Regardless of the outcome of November’s election, the days of keeping the secret. and of propping up the white male privilege that the secret sustains, are numbered. Moral progress, once gained, can't easily be reversed.
This in a nutshell is the deepest fear that Donald Trump is exploiting. He is betting that the hearts and minds of enough frightened, unenlightened bigots are feeling the threat of that progress and will trust Trump, and him alone, to stem its spread. He is hoping that, with a finger-flick revolt against the inexorable tide of history, their fear somehow will propel him to the White House. Again, it would be naive to think it couldn't happen.
That’s why the November election is not merely a choice between two qualitatively different candidates, although it clearly is that. Nor is it just a choice between two different kinds of fear, one rational, the other profoundly irrational, although it surely is that.
Rather, it also is a referendum on the moral character of a nation and the secrets it keeps.
"The Ethics Coach" Stephen Swecker, a retired clergy member of the United Methodist West Virginia Annual Conference, describes himself as "teacher, writer, ethics and religion coach, hamburger grilling prodigy." He blogs at Ethics Unplugged, from which this post is republished with the author's permission.