In his book, Costly Grace, subtitled “An Evangelical Minister’s Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love,” Rob Schenck tells about a presentation from a fundraising group who was promoting “Fear and Anger” as their primary motivator. They told him that if he presented his plans and its benefits, some people would send him some money, but if he aroused their fears and stoked their anger, they would send him a lot of money.

I’m sure Schenck recognized the ironic parallel between “Fear and Anger” of the fundraisers and his own group: Faith and Action. And I’m sure that he recognized the inflammatory language that his anti-abortion group had used in Operation Rescue as an excellent example of it.

But I doubt that he realized that over the next twenty years, it would become the way we do politics. It seems that fear and anger is as effective for gathering votes as it is for raising money. And the most prominent example of it was the Donald Trump campaign.

An observant person could get whiplash from trying to keep up with whom we’re supposed to be afraid of on any given day. It was probably one of the following:

·         Mexicans because they are coming to take our jobs, rape our women, and turn the country brown.

·         Muslims because beneath every burqa is a suicide vest and in every mosque a terror cell.

·         Democrats because they are dragging us down the slippery slope to socialism and/or communism.

·         Secularists because they are turning our nation into a bunch of atheists, and if we don’t become a theocracy God is going to get us.

·         Feminists because they are persecuting males, and males must fight back before they lose their position.

·         Blacks because they are taking the country away from the whites.

That’s just a partial list, but it’s sufficient to show that we are not being led. We’re being manipulated. It seems that just as everybody is afraid of something, there is somebody who wants to use it as a wedge or a hammer to cause that person to join the flock.

I have a good deal of difficulty believing any of this. I know that this country is still roughly two-thirds white, 70% self-identified Christian, and that 75% of the senior executives in US companies are male. If you limit the range to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, the figure is higher than 90%. If you look at the number of black CEOs in those companies, the figure is almost zero. As an old, Christian, white male, I have some difficulty knowing who I should be afraid of or why I should be afraid. Seems like, of all the people in this country, I and my particular tribe should be the most secure.

Now I’m watching the Trump campaign being recreated on a more inept level by the Republican candidate for governor of Georgia. Last night during what is every more accurately denoted as “fringe time” on television, I was treated to three commercials calling Stacey Abrams “too extreme for Georgia.” According to the commercials, she has allied herself with pedophiles and “government-run health care.”

And I’ve seen both of these claims repeated on social media. Shows that some people prefer to be manipulated by “fear and anger” than to do ten minutes of research.

The sex offender bill that Abrams voted against was, in the eyes of a number of legislators and non-partisan organizations, simply bad law. It substituted a very specific list of places for the existing law that said that convicted sexual predators were prohibited from being within 1000 feet from where children congregate. Essentially Stacy Abrams’ vote was to maintain a blanket ban rather that deal with specific places.  And if you’re going to use that to paint Stacey Abrams as a friend to pedophiles, you need to include the 30 other Georgia legislators who voted the same way.

It was, as with a lot of other legislation these days, a bit of show business that to some people sounds good and accomplishes nothing.

And, of course, that vote was ten years ago.

The “government-run healthcare” claim evidently comes from Abrams platform plank saying she will try to expand Medicaid in Georgia. The result will be better, more available healthcare for a state that has the highest rate of pregnancy-related deaths in the nation and ranks 43^rd in the nation in overall health care.

Nothing in her platform seems the least bit extreme, socialistic or communistic to me. You can read it for yourself at https://staceyabrams.com/issues/. If you really want to feel wonkish, also visit Brian Kemps website and compare their platforms.

Then you can ignore all the attempts at fear and anger aimed at you every night on your TV.

We have, as so many have already pointed out, become a nation of snow flakes or—probably more accurate—a nation of timid birds scared by every scarecrow that those with money and power want to put in front of us. I’m old enough to remember when we bravely took on big challenges and often succeeded.

That’s one part of our past I’d like bring back.

What we’ve come to makes me very sad.