Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

THE POLITICS OF FEAR (2/14)

Republican supporters in the press and on TV seem fearful people. They fear medicare for all, foreigners, the poor, people with dark skin, homosexuals, losing their right to own a gun. Hannity on Fox News and others on the right sneer at and diminish others while congratulating themselves. Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Congress wear sour expressions and try earnestly to convince us of their moral high ground while they play political games to convince us that their way is right. Worse they are all humorless. The President and his White House whine about fake news as they stumble from disaster to disaster. Their verbal equivocations sound naive and insulting. Building a border wall is insulting to our neighbors. Surely leaving your home, confronting danger, spending your last dollar to travel thousands of miles because you want a better life for your children is not bad but shows a desperate courage? The journeys themselves qualify you to apply to be an American citizen. Republicans fear change but change is part of life and history. Politicians should be controlling that process intelligently and fearlessly to the benefit of all. We have nothing to fear after all but fear itself.