I have been watching politics unfold for a long time—first
as a young idealist hopeful to make the world a better place, later as a
student of history interested in understanding the stories of our past, and now
as a scholar and analyst helping others to understand the process and its
intricacies. But today I write as a father concerned for the future of our
political discourse. I’m specifically concerned when I see certain American
politicians turn to fearmongering as a way to manipulate the electorate.
During this political season, I have seen candidates both nationally
and here in Montana resort to the divisive language of “us” versus “them,”
pretending that they are leaders for “telling it like it is.” These candidates
purport to say what regular politicians refuse to voice, and because of that,
they argue, we should lend them our support. They are not corruptible, they
claim, because they are “one of us” and not “one of them.” They come from
outside the contemptible, “broken” political system. They can make America, and
Montana, great again because only they have the will to do the tough things the
venal politicians in the pocket of special interests refuse to stomach.
These candidates aren’t tough and principled. They are
master manipulators asking us to give in to our basest fears. They are
unscrupulous charlatans selling us bill of goods.
That’s not leadership. It calls to mind the Red Panic
following World War I, or the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Have we lost all
decency?
Leaders don’t play on people’s fears. They acknowledge our
fears, but inspire us to overcome them. They ask us to move beyond fear and bind
us together. They do not push us apart. Leaders, like all of us, are not
perfect. They make mistakes. But they fundamentally strive to bring out the
best in us as a people, together.
Make no mistake: Political disputes are healthy and good in
a republic. We should disagree and do so vigorously. The problem is when that
discourse becomes poisoned by a desire to win a political argument at all
costs. This mentality encourages doubling down on fear to marshal our darkest
doubts against our perceived enemies. It fosters and deepens divisions between
us. It is especially dangerous when that fear encourages a majority “us” versus
a minority “them”—stoked by too cute by half political framing that skews facts
to make a convenient argument.
All is not yet lost. We—the people—are at a time of
choosing, Ronald Reagan once said. We can chose candidates that manipulate our
fears to advance their campaign, or we can chose candidates who wish to
overcome them. We can chose hucksters who have no fidelity to truth or civil
discourse.
Or we can choose leaders.
May Americans be inspired to act together this election
season “by the better angels of our nature” rather than give into our fear. If
we choose to surrender to the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which
paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance,” then not only is our
republic imperiled, but we really have lost our collective national soul.