Fear Itself

Eighty-six years ago Franklin Roosevelt addressed a frightened nation after taking the oath of office to become the 32nd President of the United States. Of the many words he uttered that cold, bleak March day, only one line has lived on in history. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Almost four years into the Great Depression, America was teetering on the brink of revolution. The economy that had seemed boundless only a few years earlier had totally collapsed. Wages had plummeted, one out of every four Americans were out of work, and the fabric of family life was badly frayed. Fear was real, its causes could be named, its justifications were well established.

But thanks to FDR and his Brain Trust (not to mention a job-creating world war), the United States crawled out of its self-induced financial collapse and became the great economic engine that dominated the globe for the next seventy-five years. While that dominance has begun to wane, Americans have much less to fear in March 2019 than they did in March 1933 when President Roosevelt stood (aided by braces supporting his polio-withered legs) before a phalanx of microphones to insist that "this Nation asks for action, and action now."

Which brings me to today. FDR's signature line is more true now than it ever was then. As a 21st century military and economic superpower, America has much less to fear in 2019 than it did when its financial system collapsed in the fall of 1929. But fear is an irrational thing, and we are nothing if not (at times) an irrational nation.

That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of things out there to be afraid of, however. The list is long and menacing and entirely rational. Unlike the Mexican rapey, drug-dealing kind—these fears are real. Such as:

1. The Prosperity Gospel: If Jesus knew what Evangelical Christianity has been doing in his name over the last half century he'd roll over in his . . . well, you get the point.

2. Climate Change Deniers: The planet isn't going to fall over dead in the next twenty-five years, but the additional damage we inflict by then may be irreparable. Lifetime smokers never regain their full health after they quit and the only home we've got is no different. The clock is ticking.  

3. The National Debt and Budget Deficit: two entirely separate things, but together will eventually spell real trouble for the US economy and the American taxpayers who will have to bail out Wall Street and the government, again. 

4. The Loss of Earned Entitlements: Last year's tax cut for the super wealthy (not you and me) has put Social Security and Medicare squarely in the crosshairs of Mitch McConnell and his Scrooge-like Republican acolytes in Congress. "We just can't afford it," they routinely wail, a question never asked about a military budget that now comprises more than half of all federal government spending. Money for war is a blank check. When money is needed for "the general welfare" (health, education,  childcare, social services, retirement, etc.) the bank is sadly underfunded.

5. Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression: The current government of the world's first liberal democracy actively promotes the false belief that voter fraud is a real thing. It's not and they know it. Why can't they just say what they really mean? They don't want black people to be able to easily cast a vote for the candidate of their choice. 

6. The Opioid Crisis: Unlike invading caravans from Central America, this one is a real killer. 17,000 overdose deaths a generation ago has risen sharply to 70,000 in 2017 (drugabuse.gov). Oxycontin, Fentanyl, and the like—this was Big Pharma at its worst, publically minimizing the powerfully addictive qualities of these painkillers in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, tens of thousands of deaths be damned.

7. Anti-Vaxxers: They clearly don't understand what herd immunity means (FYI - the resistance to the spread of contagious disease within a population that results if a sufficiently high proportion of people are immune via vaccination). It's not rocket science, it's science science. And come on, you originally took your cues from Jenny McCarthy, Playboy's 1993 Playmate of the Year. Jenny, I'm truly sorry your son has autism but your theory that it was caused by vaccination has been thoroughly debunked. Sadly, your wrongheaded outspoken-ness on this issue went viral, unlike the diseases vaccinations prevent.

8. The White American Male: If all Muslims are terrorists, if all Mexicans are criminals, if all liberals are "snowflakes," if all African-Americans men are gang-bangers, if all Jews are money-grubbing, if all women are too emotional for high public office, and if all poor people are too lazy to better their condition, then why don't we paint all white American males with the same broad brush—as dangerous, Alt-Right, Nazi-idealizing, automatic weapon-toting homegrown terrorists who commit mass murder? Because it's not true, of course. None of those stereotypes, without exception, are true. Not even close.

We have plenty to fear, and despite what Fox News "reports," it's not our fellow man.  Nonetheless, America has become a nation of frightened people. Instead of demanding "action, and action now" from our government, we have let our fears boil and simmer, infecting the Body Politic to such a high degree that polarization and paralysis have become so familiar that we assume it has always been thus. Hardly. In fact, we used to be bold, accomplish a great many things.

I was in Boston last weekend visiting my children. After saying our goodbyes Sunday morning, I wandered the downtown area for a couple hours and heard a number of different languages spoken and saw plenty of different ethnicities riding the subway easily together, but it wasn't until I saw a particular man on the sidewalk that I thought about "fear itself." He had every reason to be afraid, and all the time. After all, he was blind. And yet there he was, striding toward me, dressed professionally, cane tapping the way confidently. A man who knew where he was headed and sure of how to get there. If he could conquer his fears, why can't we?