It's Halloween and the Fright Monsters are out in force

 

“Fear can have a voice, but it doesn’t get a vote” - Elizabeth Gilbert

Of the top nine issues concerning voters in 2022, found in a recent Pew Research poll, the issue of crime never made a showing.  The top issue is the economy and how inflation is impacting our purchasing power with higher prices for food, energy and housing expenses.  

But explaining the causes of inflation are complex and not easy to pin down on any single factor, though Republicans would have you believe that it’s totally connected to the Party currently in power.  A normal tactic during election cycles for both parties, but one that leaves Republicans egg-faced who use it this year against their Democratic rivals.  Inflation is less governmental action than it is market responses to national and global situations often outside the control of a single player.

While one Party tries to allay the fears of consumers and voters, the other is stoking them, because it is no secret that the use of fear has a strong influence on our political and social choices.  Which brings us back to the issue of crime and how it is being used by today’s MAGA Republicans.  Beware of “politicians and candidates [who make statements] for strategic reasons that extend beyond changing your vote to demobilizing the electorate,” says Leonie Huddy, PhD, professor of political science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

When searching on line for results of crime and how it plays into this year’s election, the sources are mainly right-wing media links that exploit one’s fear of this issue. These sources of cromulent editorializations know how conservatives react to notions of a liberal justice system and their claims of alleged lax enforcement standards they say allows many crimes to go unpunished and unresolved.  And though research data doesn’t support this fear-mongering misinformation, it still feeds into the MAGA conservative’s narrative that finds abundant support in campaign rallies in states where crime is the highest.  Like Texas.

I’m sure that last factual tidbit surprises many, especially those “law and order” candidates, who tout unfettered gun purchases and ownership. However, “a report released by the Violence Policy Center shows that states with weaker gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership have more deaths from gun violence than other states.”

The state of Texas is far from being immune to high crime rates under the Republican leadership of Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton.  It is in the 33rd percentile for safety, meaning 67% of states are safer and 33% of states are more dangerous.

I’ve often found myself bumfuzzled by this ominous threat of criminal violence.  Not that it doesn’t exist in our city and state, but apparently does so far less than the purveyors of fear would have you believe.  In fact, I‘ve recently discovered that my own neighborhood in Denton off Old North Road gets an A+ rating in safety from violent and property crimes, as does much of Denton, in comparison to other regions around us.  You will also find that most districts in Texas that are represented by conservative legislators have equal or higher crime rates than their more liberal districts

As great as the threat of autocrats is to democratic-republics, even greater is the threat of uninformed voters whose choices are made on groundless fears they’ve been conditioned to since childhood.  The countervailing force that helps protect our constitutional guard rails is the informed citizens that is fearless when faced with the virulent voices of disinformation.

Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years of a life sentence in prison for his passionate activism against South African apartheid, taught us “that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.  The brave man” he said, “is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”  Words to bear in mind as early voting begins October 24th in Texas.  Be fearless against those who would weaponize fear to hold onto power.

Anti-republic Republicans?

“Herein lies the deadly peril of republics: The very institutions that they so painstakingly maintain to maximize the liberty of their citizens and the stability of their body politic are susceptible to perversion into the most efficient and sustainable instruments of tyranny.”  -  author Charles Scaliger

Many Republicans who have voted against sending aid to Ukraine to defend their democracy are the same ones who recently voted against a bill to create an Office of Food Security at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which “aims to establish a department to assist veterans facing food insecurity and lack of nutrition, such as providing them with information about food stamps and other programs.”

Similarly, these MAGA Republicans, many who adhere to ludicrous QAnon conspiracies, voted against sane gun control measures following the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde and supported the decision by their male-dominated state legislatures to end a woman’s right to an abortion of an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy, especially in cases of rape or incest.  Let’s not forget either how these GOP-controlled state legislatures have made it much more difficult to vote for those who tend not to vote for their Party, through gerrymandering and restrictive voting measures on mail-in ballots and fewer voting places.

They have called the January 6th insurrectionists patriots while remaining essentially silent on the death of several Capital police and the physical abuse of hundreds of others who defended the Capitol.  Many of these “patriots”, who Samuel Johnson referred to as scoundrels, were willing to hang Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence without due process of the law and actually came armed as a lawless crowd of vigilantes.

It’s bad enough that these extremists officials in Congress threaten our institutions and traditions that established the rule of law.  However, considering how they have opposed and curtailed many of our basic freedoms and creating restrictive measures to pass bills in Congress, their aim now, if they regain control off Congress, is to “sunset” all federal legislation in five years, claiming, as GOP Senator Rick Scott does “that if a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again."  This scheme threatens to eliminate our vital Social Security, Medicare and Veterans programs.   It’s simply just another typical sleight of hand tactic of the GOP that “would leave the fate of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to the whims of a Congress that rarely passes anything so expansive.”   They simply cannot be trusted to have anyone’s best interest at heart other than their wealthy, corporate donors and Christian nationalists groups.

Governor Greg Abbott and his counterpart in Florida, Ron DeSantis, profess to be Christians whose gospels teach us the humane virtues of treating others as we would treat ourselves, recently showed us how that only applies under their rigid guidelines for what qualifies as being human.  Their callous disregard for how vulnerable people are robbed of their dignity, be they an immigrant fleeing for their lives from harsh, repressive governments or those where gang violence prevents any chance of living a productive and secure life, to those whose gender identity doesn’t meet one’s strict religious codes, is all too common of the extremists within the GOP.

Numerous polls show that most Americans don’t side with these kinds of extreme views.    A May, 2021 Quinnipiac poll showed that most Americans think the GOP is working against Democracy.

Yet the real test to how we choose to display ourselves as the “shining city on a hill” for the rest of world, resides in our will to make our voices heard with our votes in the coming elections.  2022 and 2024 will be a turning point for this nation where we will either sustain our founding principals or, as many before us have, fall victim to the demagoguery of autocrats.

In her insightful book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, Anne Applebaum shared her view on how “authoritarianism appeals, simply, to people who cannot tolerate complexity.  There is nothing intrinsically 'left wing' or 'right wing' about this instinct at all.  It is allergic to fierce debates.  Whether those who have it ultimately derive their politics from Marxism or nationalism is irrelevant.  It is a frame of mind.”   A frame of mind that is anathema to democratic-republics.