Nov 4, 2018 6 min read

Fear and anger are basic human emotions that may have served us well when we lived as hunter gatherers and life was “nasty, brutish, and short,” but those emotions are less useful in the civilized world. They may energize us or give us great strength in a fight or flight situation, but they often prevent clear thinking. In 1933, as he took office at the depths of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt bravely asserted “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR was trying to calm the fears of the populace so instead of being overwhelmed, they could address the issues at hand.

Rarely are good decisions made by people who are afraid or angry, but politicians have found it is easier to motivate voters by manipulating those emotions, which is demonstrated by the abundance (and general effectiveness) of attack ads in modern politics. The Citizens United decision in 2010 exacerbated this trend by allowing unlimited money to flow to Political Action Committees (PACs), who usually rely on negative ad campaigns to hurt candidates running against their preferred candidates. Hate and fear are damaging our country. It is difficult to live with people you hate or fear.

President Trump relies on fear and anger to generate political support: He opened his campaign by stoking fears of Mexican rapists illegally crossing our borders. He capitalizes on fear of immigrants taking jobs, fear of violent black criminals and fear of Muslims terrorists. He also stokes anger: anger at people seeking to humiliate his supporters, be they liberal elites who look down on “flyover” country, or other countries, who “take advantage” of the United States selling us things at a lower cost than we can produce them ourselves. He demonizes his opponents as the “other” who must be destroyed, not joined in the compromises necessary to govern.

Fear or anger (often both) can inspire hatred. Political opponents become not just wrong, but unpatriotic, even evil. This was evident in the 1960s when anti-war protesters were branded as unpatriotic, while war supporters were characterized as “baby killers.” Fear and anger were what drove us to send Americans of Japanese descent to internment camps during WWII, which fulfilled Benjamin Franklin’s adage “Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.”

That is not to say fear has no place in the modern world, but aside from existential threats from global warming or a nuclear holocaust, our overall health and safety continue to improve (yeah, I know; “other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”). Rational fear does keep us safe.

Steven Pinker’s 2011 book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” documents the overall decline of violence in the modern world. Violent crime in the United States has been declining for decades; the homicide rate remains near its rate in 1960, about half of its peak in 1980. We are much safer than we were decades ago, but that would be hard to tell given the scare tactics of the NRA, where the only thing keeping decent Americans from being raped and murdered is the personal ownership of powerful firearms and the willingness to use them. Of course, evidence shows guns are much more likely to be used in suicides or accidents than killing bad guys. That’s not rational fear.

Fear of crime encourages support for draconian laws and long sentences for even minor crimes, which have proven to be expensive and often counterproductive. Yes, there are some “bad apples” who will live a life of crime if they are not incarcerated, but many criminals are in jail for crimes (like drug use) that most other people get away with, or they exercised poor judgment, and end up with much poorer job prospects because of their criminal record, which encourages a return to crime because of a lack of other options. Demonization and hatred for criminals encourages prison systems to demean their inmates and deny them opportunities for improvement, even as other systems (like in Germany) demonstrate prisoners who are treated with respect and encouraged to learn skills are much less likely to end up back in prison after release. Harsh punishments may satisfy a desire for revenge, but they cost more and are less effective than more enlightened policies.

Terrorism is another area where fear can make us short-sighted. Terrorists are terrorists because they are weak, not because they are strong. They are not strong enough to bend their opponents to their will by confronting them directly, but instead try to get their targets to do their bidding through fear. By using fear to drive our policies, we feed their narrative and help them become stronger.

People in positions of power and privilege – in the United States that is white men – often fear social changes that threaten their position, such as the enhanced power of women and the growing numbers of minorities (which leads to a fear of non-European immigrants). People like the pipe bomber and the synagogue shooter are fearful and angry. Fearful forces they cannot control will change their world, worsening their position in it, and angry at the people they blame for the changes. But the world is always changing, and we need to have courage in ourselves and our convictions to be comfortable with the outcome. Only in a system that prioritizes race and gender do white men have something to fear if they are no longer the majority. If we live up to our ideals, like everyone being created equal, and that everyone has something to contribute, rather than giving in to our fears, we will all be better off.

If your political choices are inspired by hate and fear, try to recognize such emotions do not usually encourage good decisions. Look at the big picture, think rationally, and vote your conscience. Our decisions create the world we live in, so we should not base those decisions on hate and irrational fear. We should not create a world where fear and hate win.

Kent James is an East Washington resident and has degrees in history and policy management from Carnegie Mellon University.