The Core Election Issue: Fear vs. Anger
The way the Presidential election is shaping up, most of the big issues will not be openly stated. They include race, with the Republicans the White party and the Democrats the black and immigrant party; socialism, with the Democrats in favor and the Republicans against; and freedom of thought and expression, with President Trump not only an advocate but a practitioner as he says things deemed politically incorrect while the Democrats hope people do not notice what the Left is doing on college campuses, where students and professors who dissent from cultural Marxism do so at their peril. But behind these largely unstated issues lies another: the Democrats are the party of fear while the Republicans, and especially President Trump, are the party of anger.
It is obvious how the media, which are almost wholly in the Democrats’ camp, pump up the fear. The corona panic is exhibit A: most people have figured out it isn’t very dangerous unless you're lying in a bed in a nursing home, while the media talks as if the Black Death were again upon us. The Left puts more and more restrictions on daily life, all justified by COVID-19, but they fail to see how they are thereby stoking public anger. The latest example is widespread cancellation of fall college and high school sports, including football. That might seem a small matter in the great scheme of things, but it is not to the thousands of players and millions of fans. Their anger will turn into many votes for President Trump, because he is the angry man’s candidate. Some of his votes will be black votes, because sports, especially football, are young black men’s road out of the ghetto.
Fear is the Democrats’ underlying theme on almost every issue. Global warming and climate change, job losses (most of them lost to the over-reaction to COVID-19, which the Democrats continue to push), “black rage” as the Left urges young blacks to riot, loot, and burn, these and many other issues reflect the Dems’ main message: it’s a terribly dangerous world out there, but if you’ll give us all your money and your liberties, we’ll protect you. They won’t, but so long as they get your money and freedoms they will have won. Of course, the day after the Democrats win, if they do, the media will turn off the fear machine and become Pollyanna.
On the other side, President Trump benefits from every voter who gets angry. He is an angry man, and that resonates with other people’s anger. The ongoing violence in our cities and their rapidly rising crime rates, an inevitable product of the Left’s assault on police, are an example. The Left thinks people will be afraid of what’s happening. But instead, they are getting angry. They want the traditional “whiff of grape” to answer the rioters, not more government programs to keep them happy. They are angry towards the blacks, they are angry about being flooded by immigrants who do not acculturate, they are angry about the COVID-19 shut-downs that have killed their jobs, their social lives, and their football games.
So what happens in November? My bet is that anger wins big, which is to say President Trump is re-elected in a landslide and the Republicans take back the House and keep the Senate. But there is a larger issue here that will play out after the election. Does a Republican win satisfy angry Americans, or will their anger continue to build until it overflows the political system into the streets?
The answer will depend in part how the Left reacts to defeat. If it pumps up the fear campaign and the urban violence, the Right will at some point respond. Hopefully, that response will take the form of supporting the police and National Guard as they move to restore order--which even Democratic mayors will want, to save their own political skins--but it may go further. If checkpoints manned by armed locals start going up in the countryside, watch out: Fourth Generation war is here.
If the Democrats scare enough voters (mostly women) into giving them a victory, the anger of the angry public will boil over. Its numbers will include most cops and Guardsmen, so Democratic governments may not have the tools they rely on (while at the same time despising them). Where do the Democrats turn then? Power ceases to be power when no one obeys it. The scenario in Thomas Hobbes’ Victoria plays out, which again means 4GW on our own soil.
In terms of the core issue, fear vs. anger, the 2020 election will be an important one--so important that there may not be another, at least for a long time.