[Author's Note: As context for readers from the future, this was written in response to the election of Donald Trump as Commander in Chief of the United States of America.]
I've been reading quite a few posts online in which someone attempts to explain to Trump supporters why they are afraid to live in a country ruled by Trump and ask his supporters why and how they could support him.
After much reflection, I believe these posts miss the core of the issue. You might as well ask the wind why it blows or explain to a tornado why you are afraid of what your life will be like after it passes. What Trump has tapped into is elemental and cannot be reasoned with.
Sure, Trump supporters provide what they feel are rational reasons for their vote and why any fear is misplaced. But the reality is that no-one can rationally support Trump. His supporters do so for reasons that are beyond reason. I don't mean this as a generalization but I state it categorically and believe it applies to everyone who voted for him down to the last.
But Why?
Dickens sums it up well in “A Christmas Carol” when the Ghost of Christmas Present warns Scrooge, “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it. Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.”
But even Dickens is only responding to the symptom. FDR stated the cause: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Because that is the elemental force; the name and sign of the beat: Fear.
But Fear of What?
In a country that is safer and wealthier than any in history, which is the most powerful both economically and physically, and in which the citizens have an unprecedented amount of freedom and choice, what exactly could its citizens fear? Unfortunately, as civilized as we have become, I believe the fear at play here is as old as humanity itself. It is Xenophobia.
Although the simple definition is the “fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners” what we care about is the full definition which, according to Merriam-Webster, is the “fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.” We need the full definition because we have a perfect storm at this moment of people and things both strange and foreign.
Surely there are those who fit the traditional definition and are worried about immigrants taking their jobs or terrified of terrorists blowing up their children and, to add fuel to that fire, there are frequent reports about how soon our population will no longer be majority European. But we also have a rise in the visibility and acceptance of the LGBT community and concerns over the robot (or more correctly the AI) apocalypse both of which are feared by different subsets of the people.
And that is all you need to know. I, along with many others, underestimated the degree to which someone like Trump could harness Xenophobia to his will. It is clear he has read “Mein Kampf” and used it as his playbook. He read the same tea leaves in America that Hitler read in Germany and had the political skill to achieve the same ends.
What remains to be seen is whether his lust for power is sated or not. Unfortunately, if history tells us anything, that is rarely the case.
