Fear

FEAR

   Fear motivates people.  Some politicians know this and build on it.  We are often talking here of irrational fear: people who live in safe places get worried about crime.  Some want to arm themselves in reaction to fear.  Some want ridiculously high military budgets and ”fortress America”.  Some want more jail and less bail. Many are irrationally afraid of immigrants.  Some Euro-Americans fear African Americans.

   In a complex world one must be wary, but we must not be manipulated by fear.  This seems to have happened in this year’s Congressional elections on Long Island, New York.  At a time when many are working from home due to Covid and in a very safe area of the country, the majority of voters there became obsessed by crime and voted out progressives and voted in conservatives.  

(Source:  The New York Times, 11/27/22)