Dear Sir:
Fear is a very powerful emotion, one that causes otherwise rational people to make irrational decisions. No one knows this better than Donald Trump and the Republican Party. They have used fear for decades to get voters to support them. The Lee Atwater/Willie Horton ads against Michael Dukakis, in the George H.W. Bush Presidential campaign in 1988, were very effective in getting people to vote for Mr. Bush.
Now, in 2020, Donald Trump is using fear to sway the election in his favor. Considering that he has no other accomplishment to run on, fear is the only tool available to him. He cannot run on a successful economy with very high unemployment. He cannot run on fiscal responsibility with a doubling of the budget deficit and adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. He cannot run on a coordinated, effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic. He cannot run on an administration of high ethics and family values, considering all his associates convicted of crimes and his own sexual misconduct. He cannot run on a policy of uniting the nation and managing racial injustice and police brutality. He cannot run on an effective foreign policy that has strengthened our alliances and weakened our enemies. He cannot run on a policy that has improved our environmental quality and education systems. No, the only thing Donald Trump has to run on is fear—fear that has been magnified as a result of the failures of the Trump Administration.
As FDR stated in the 1930s, “the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Donald Trump has been the major cause of the fear that currently grips the nation. Allowing him to benefit from the chaos and fear he has created is not the solution, but a guarantee of even more chaos, fear, and worse.
Rich DiPentima, LTC, USAF Ret.
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
It’s no wonder his strategy—such as it is—is entirely fear-based. Somewhere inside that bloated, self-aggrandized exterior is Fred Trump’s abused and terrified child. We’d pity him, if he weren’t an existential threat to life on earth. As it is, we just say, “Lock him up.”
The Editor