San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Healing our divisions.
Fear won’t win; a divided nation will survive
Woody Allen movies have taught me a lot about human nature. Especially the ones featuring a deeply flawed protagonist, who is super confident and totally together on the surface, but inside is worried, confused, nervous and insecure. He makes it all up with bravado and the ever-present need to reassure all present that he’s smarter than everyone.
In many ways, Allen’s characters seem so much like President Donald Trump, and they remind me of a conversation I had with Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas mogul, just before Trump was elected.
“I know him well,” Wynn confided. “We both owned gambling casinos in Atlantic City. I advised him to sell his properties while the getting was good. I sold mine just in time. He kept his and went bankrupt.”
He continued: “That man doesn’t listen; he’s all ego. He’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is and is prone to making big mistakes. He attracts good people, but once hired, he largely blows them off. He’s convinced there’s no one smarter than he. Trump’s a good father, though, I’ll give him that.”
Trump’s 2016 win foretold something big — the Republican Party as we knew it had been turned on its head. Fear was in the air like never before, and Trump took pleasure in stoking it. In fact, the more he did it, the more his fan base loved him.
Fear is the most commanding of human emotions. Laying so close to the surface, it is easily aroused, especially when people are told there are enemies at hand and they stand to lose something dear.
I saw this fear firsthand in 2016, as my friend George Antuna and I traveled around Texas, talking to Republican groups about the need to become more inclusive by attracting more Latinos and people of color to the party.
The attendees weren’t all that interested in Latinos. They wanted to talk about a whole lot of “scary” stuff like the immigrant “invasion,” Muslims, losing their guns, the country becoming socialist, a threat of a liberal Supreme Court and abortion remaining legal. But most of all, they feared change, losing their dominant position in the America they knew.
When a president fuels these kinds of fears on a daily basis, sometimes with total disregard for truth, with an entire news network echoing and amplifying him, the predictable happens: Viewers become more and more convinced. Trump and his friends at Fox News have created an alternative reality: a country in peril. A country that only they can save.
Of course, the same is true over at CNN, MSNBC and others. Loyal viewers believe we are a country in peril and that only they can save it.
I’ve worked on six presidential campaigns, and I know this much: Every individual who runs for president believes that they, and only they, can save America. And everyone who backs them believes likewise.
That’s why we keep hearing the phrase, “It’s so scary,” coming from both Republicans and Democrats. Everyone seems to be in fear
So, what’s going to happen on Jan. 20?
Joe Biden will take the helm, but the country will remain divided. After trying his damndest to hold on to power in his “win at all costs” kind of way, Trump will have to finally hand over the marbles. Fox News and Trump will continue to promote the “we were robbed” charade.
And why not? As long as their ratings remain high, the money will continue flowing into Rupert Murdoch’s pocket. Trump’s followers will keep the drums of divisiveness beating for months, maybe years.
Now, there’s nothing new about a divided country. We’ve been much more divided in the past. There was money in slavery, too. So, we took arms and slaughtered each other. In the 1960s, the country was divided along generational and ideological lines almost to the breaking point, but we did not break.
And we’ll make it again because our collective love of country is stronger than ever.
We might try taking a deep breath, counting to 10 and remembering what we all have in common. What unites us as Americans is our love of freedom. And as always, right now, we’re all exercising that freedom. The freedom to express our views. The freedom to support whomever we please. And the freedom to choose our leaders, whomever he and she may be.
As Mariel Hemingway said in her parting words to Allen in the movie “Manhattan,” “You gotta have a little faith in people.”
Lionel Sosa, a
Republican, was media adviser to Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and John
McCain.