The year of fear
2016 was the year Fear was used for political and ideological gain – and the world regressed as a result.
Donald Trump treated the presidential campaign as a venue to incite fear rather than a place to unite.
Muslims, Mexicans, China, the political establishment, the media, women’s rights and gun control lobbyists were all targets of Trump’s fear mongering. In the most infantile language ever seen in a campaign, he told audiences America is a bad place, with a bad economy and under threat from bad immigrants and evil terrorists.
Trump played on their fears, made irrational pledges about how he would Make America Great Again (which was code for going back to the racially segregated, imperialist 1950’s with the little woman at home and men as breadwinners).
Trump could never articulate how he would achieve this, but that didn’t matter to voters battling massive socio-economic inequality and a deteriorating quality of life – they just heard Trump was promising to get them a job and would deal with evil immigrants.
Post-election hate crimes are on the rise, and American’s are protesting both Trump and the electoral system. Meanwhile he is appointing right wing ideologues to his cabinet.
Fear was front and centre in the British referendum to leave the European Union (Brexit). Some supporters of the leave campaign were guilty of using racial hatred to frighten workers into believing their jobs and lifestyle were threatened by migrants and refugees fleeing Europe. Outspoken leader of UK Independence Party (UKIP), Nigel Farage took great joy in standing in front of a UKIP poster declaring ‘Breaking Point: the EU has failed us all’ over the picture of a queue of nonwhite faces. Farage used any opportunity in front of a microphone to taint migrants as criminals to the benefit of the Leave campaign.
Post-referendum, the pro-leave camp seemed unprepared for victory, and now face the Pound at a near 30-year low, a downgrading of Britain’s credit rating, and the daunting task of unwinding 43 years of legislation, treaties and trade agreements which could take well over 5 years. Any financial benefits from Brexit seem a distant goal.
Australia was not immune to political posturing mixed with fear mongering. Contradicting the name of her political party, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson voiced a pure dog whistle to the xenophobes and racists who live amongst us. Echoing her 2006 maiden speech to Parliament, when she created uproar by declaring Australia was being swamped by Asians, in 2016 Ms Hanson declared Australia to be in danger of being swamped by Muslims.
The common thread running amongst the fear campaigners is the perceived threat to the status quo, i.e. white hegemony is losing its grip on power. Inciting fear veiled in patriotism is one of the few remaining ways to keep a grasp on that power.
The net result is it gives licence to every disaffected nutter to lash out at those the politicians have targeted.
Witness the murder of UK politician Jo Cox by a white supremacist, the dramatic increase in racial violence and hate crimes in the USA, and the physical and verbal harassment of Muslims in Australia.
We have been transported back to a time before civil rights and racial tolerance, and the world is poorer for it.