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Party of Fear and Hatred

The Republican Party in the US has produced some of our great presidents, beginning with Abraham Lincoln and featuring Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.  One characteristic of the three is that they were fearless and brave.  Lincoln paid for it with his life. Teddy Roosevelt was a fighter in every sense of the word. And Ike was considered one of our our best military leaders.These were men who moved forward fearlessly.

And now we have the Republican Party of today -- a group of men and some women who are falling back in retreat because they are consumed with fear. They fear science, the future, universal education, voting rights, Islam, our own government, and any form of  "otherness."

They are also afraid of people: Muslims, immigrants, gays, black, brown and Asian people, any minority, transsexuals, feminists, union members, President Obama, and Pope Francis.

The current GOP has so many phobias, it should be hospitalized.

And the thing about fearful people is that if they fear something or someone, they want to convince the rest of us to be terrorized as well. They literally preach fear. That's how we ended up invading Iraq. Dubya, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neo-cons set up an incessant chant of fear, fear of WMDs, Saddam's secret nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and the presence of al-Qaeda  terrorists in Iraq. All fear-mongering lies.

When president Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 said,  "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,"  he was wisely warning us of the disastrous results of fear-driven policies.

The knee-jerk reaction of the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks is typical of the mistakes made as a result of fear. Attorney General Ashcroft and the administration convinced Congress to pass the so-called "Patriot Act" which sacrificed various of our civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorists. One might conclude that Osama bin Laden won that one, he scared us into giving up some of our cherished rights. Hopefully our nation will continue to walk back some of the most egregious excesses of that ill-advised, fear-driven legislation.

In our current situation, almost every Republican politician is opposed to President Obama's Iranian Nuclear Treaty, and although our nuclear scientists and military experts support the treaty, the GOP fears Barrack Obama will receive credit for for making peace instead of war. Perhaps that kind of political fear is the most sinister; it keeps politicians from acting in the best interests of our country.

Another detrimental aspect of fear is that it generates anger and hatred. It is no coincidence that, within the last eight years, the number of hate groups in this country has reached historic highs.  If a major political party and a major television news organization continues to promote fear, those who drink the fear Kool-Aid will become angry at all those "others" who are not white and do not attend the "right' churches.

When John Kennedy was campaigning for president, Southern Baptists, among others,  claimed that a Catholic could not be president. Today presidential candidate Ben Carson and other Republicans are so fearful of Islam that they tell us a Muslim should never be elected president. Apparently these fear-mongers have not read the Constitution which rules out any such religious litmus test.  It seems that Islam-phobia is part and parcel of the current GOP, and such fear generates hated, and, in the minds of some followers, that excuses violence. Not what our country needs.

Within  the cacophonous circus that is the current Republican Party, there must be be a potential fearless leader in the mold of Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Eisenhower. Let's hope she or he steps forward soon and begins advocating for building peace rather than walls and fences..