Fear is one’s anticipation of danger to oneself or the group you identify such as racial, economic, ethnic or religious. Political fear is among the oldest and has extended since the dawn of civilization. In America, it is an innate part of societal experience, where historically we’ve maintained a distinction between those who are born to be in power and those who are born to be subjugated.
Aristotle wrote in Rhetoric, “Fear is caused by whatever we feel has great power of destroying us or of harming us in ways that tend to cause great pain.”
Exploiting human fear has been the hallmark of Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign. Announcing his 2016 candidacy for President, he raised the alarm that immigrants were invading and threatening our country. Mexico, he stated, was sending criminals and rapists to attack Americans. At an initial campaign rally, he directed his followers to assault an African American protester, assuring them that he would pay for their attorney costs.
Tapping into the deep-rooted fear of foreigners by Americans, Trump has solidified his position with white voters and has even gained increasing support from Latinos and African Americans. His constant fearmongering has triggered a widespread reaction, spreading like a contagion.
The fearmongering continues, posturing white society against people of color, religious minorities and women. During his first year as president, he generated widespread contempt against Muslims, resulting in them becoming the victims of continuous violence and mass killings.
He also directed his hate language against the Chinese, accusing China of starting the pandemic, triggering assaults against the Asian community across the nation.
Throughout his campaign, he’s advanced an underlying theme identifying African Americans and Latinos as a threat to the American way of life. He’s accused them of attempting to replace white society and of eventually poisoning their blood.
When asked how he would stop the flow of immigrants at the border, he suggested that they should be shot in the leg and has consistently promoted using the National Guard or the nation’s military to control the border. Similarly, he’s advocated using them to suppress protests but refused to use them to put down an insurrection against our nation.
Despite the violence he’s triggered, his campaign rhetoric has worsened, even considering the bombing of suspected cartel sites in Mexico.
The increasing use of visceral divisive rhetoric has triggered a continual escalation of mass murders. During Trump’s presidency, the number of mass killings rose significantly.
Robert Reich, economist and former secretary of labor, reports that Trump’s presidency has the notoriety of having the single largest increase of murders in one year and that mass killings totaled 1,700. At the same time, the sale of weapons of war broke all records. In his first year, a young man entered a church in South Carolina killing nine people with the purpose of starting a race war.
Mass killing continued unfettered with the killing of children in schools, attacks on religious institutions and ethnic groups and the killing of 57 people at a concert in Las Vegas.
During the trials of numerous mass killers, they raised the defense that they were being patriotic and that Trump had heightened their fear that our country was under attack especially by immigrants and people of color.
Killings of immigrants intensified with the massacre of 27 immigrants at a Walmart in El Paso; the killing of many in south Texas; numerous children in New York, Florida and Texas; and still other incidents in California. In 2024, there were more than 224 such killings. Each of these incidents is preceded by hateful fearmongering by Trump.
Despite the persistent use of violent and hate language, no one has held Trump accountable. The Republican Party has now been called a cult due to the widespread adoption of his visceral hate rhetoric and its consistent Pavlovian response. Edmond Burke wrote, “Fear so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
The Jan. 6 sedition on the Capitol and attack on the legitimate transfer of power resulted in attacks on police officers and the destruction of property. Seven individuals died both directly and indirectly due to the trauma precipitated by the violence. Although some have tried to hold Trump accountable, he has successfully evaded prosecution.
During the current campaign, Trump raised the fear level by repeatedly stating that they are not coming for me, but for you.
This is the age-old jargon of dictators to move the masses and the arena of political conspiracy theories. This has created a contagion of violence and continues to intensify the polarization of society.
Our nation has been so polarized that Trump now states we are in a life-and-death struggle for our nation. During his first year as president, a young follower killed nine African Americans and, most recently, Trump faced an attempted assassination by a young fellow Republican. Both responded to fear baiting, both were driven by a deep-rooted passion to protect their nation.
Even more significant, how was a young Republican youth driven to the point of wanting to assassinate the leader of his party. Perhaps, it’s a rational inner voice that drove a young follower to act in what he perceived to be patriotic. Trump has created a state of conduciveness that allows fear to lash out as violence.
At one point, it triggered the violation of the Democratic House Speaker’s home and the vicious attack of her husband with a hammer. Again, the perpetrator’s defense is that he felt our nation was threatened.
Trump repeatedly feeds that fear, and it continues to be allowed to fester and lash out at will. Again, a 14-year-old boy killed four people at his school and wounded many others. He’s being charged as an adult, yet Trump, who has triggered such repeated responses, is allowed to go free, unconstrained.
Perhaps if he was a person of color, it would have been different and he would be charged with a conspiracy. Uncertain? It’s reflected in our history. Aristotle stated, “The coward then is a despairing sort of person for he fears everything. The brave man, on the other hand, has the opposite deposition for confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.”
Republicans have repeatedly stated that our country is on the brink of civil war. Even Trump has stated that if he loses there will be a bloody mess.
A recent director of the Heritage Foundation publicly stated that “we are in the midst of a revolution that can be ‘bloodless’ if the Democrats accept it.”
More disturbing, although our nation’s children are killed in schools by mass killers, we diminish its implications for our nation and legitimize the possession of weapons of war by private citizens even though mentally ill or have a history of domestic violence.
Even more unsettling, the leading proponents of such violence are elected officials. Historically, political fear has often been resolved through violence. The current political atmosphere in America has generated a state of conduciveness, where it continues to occur and could again generate civil strife.
The hatred and fear generated by Trump’s MAGA movement have resulted in our society becoming immune to widespread carnage as if inanimate or a form of “fake news.”
Even when perpetrators are placed on trial, they argue that they were acting “patriotic” and were following Trump’s lead. They’re convinced that they acted on behalf of the nation as true patriots. Fear has triggered violence, and society has been possessed by what President Lincoln called “our worst angels.”
