Read the news or watch it on television or your device of choice and you can easily see the fear behind the stories that are driving the headlines this year. Like the stench of a backed up septic tank, the scent of fear is everywhere. The world seems to be writhing in this noxious environment like an animal in pain. This post is not so much an essay on the dynamics of fear as it is on the fear we all face today in this geopolitical climate.
I have learned that fear is a lot like fire. In small, carefully-controlled environments, both fear and fire can serve useful purposes. Fear can warn us to slow down and be cautious, in terms of financial exposure and the degree of risk you want on the stock market in these days. Fire is also useful. We can cook with fire. Fire can provide light and warmth for us. But if fear–or fire–gets out of the box, then you may have apocalyptic consequences similar to what we see on television happening in California routinely, and most recently in New Jersey. Enough fire in a small, area such as four-square miles, can cause a fire storm with hurricane force winds. At that point it becomes a completely different foe. Fear is likewise powerful and contagious as well. Our small children and pets can sense it. Deena and I heard today that unaccompanied migrants as young as three years old must go to court (without counsel.) The court provides them with small toys or coloring books to occupy them as the State files briefs and motions and the judge questions the adults about what will happen to these orphaned children. But when the child who knows no English is finally called forward by the bailiff, they invariably cry unconsolably, because though they have no idea what is happening, they do know this somber proceeding effects them and that is frightening to them. And it should be likewise a concern to you if you care about our Constitution and children! God does. Isn’t that reason enough that we should care likewise?
Almost ten million Americans take medication every day to deal with anxiety, panic and fear when we live under the best of circumstances. Another twenty-nine million people in this country are alcoholics (and hopefully not the same ones who take Klonopin and Ativan.) They “drown their fears” in spirits. The rest of us are left to our own devices.
So, again, this is a post on fear, but not a word study on fear, itself, but rather fear as it applies to American society today. In my mind, the greatest fear our society is grappling with has to do with the assault on our Constitution by this administration and cuts in entitlements and services in order to fund parochial priorities. We have a de facto dictator in the White House redefining old laws and introducing new ones on a daily basis while Congress is most likely adjourned (again), as it is wont to do these past two years. At least this is what is leading hundreds of thousands of Americans in increasing numbers to demonstrate across the country every other weekend.
LISA MURKOWSKI
Sixty-seven-year-old Lisa Murkowski (R) has served in the U.S. Senate for twenty-three years, representing the state of Alaska. She was originally appointed to fill the Senate seat of her father, by her father, who, while serving as Senator, was elected to be Governor of Alaska. Alaskans back then reportedly soured on the nepotism of a father choosing his daughter to fill his unexpired term, and it was only in 2022 that she was finally reelected with more than fifty percent of the vote. In 2010, however, she lost the Republican primary and therefore could not run as the Republican candidate for the Senate. She ran a write-in campaign as an independent candidate and against all odds, won. Because she was a Republican from a family of Republicans, she rejoined the Senate as a Republican. Yet, this did not endear herself with her republican colleagues in Congress who did not support her write-in campaign in the first place. Today, she has been a much more moderate conservative than most others republicans in her party and has broken ranks with President Trump on some occasions, which is a cardinal sin. According to recent comments earlier this week, this freedom to vote for what she believes is best for Alaska and the country has not come without threats from the MAGA right.
SPEAKING OUT
Senator Murkowski, her family and her staff have faced harassment and threats. She knows what fear is first hand. Speaking to an audience at the Foraker Group, during its annual Leadership Summit, she answered questions from the audience. She spoke about possible, even likely cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other programs important to Alaskans. She mourned how USAID and the Ukrainian refugee program had been “obliterated” with no opportunity for discussion, yet alone the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. Speaking at the Foraker summit, and According to the Anchorage Daily News she said:
“We are all afraid. It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”
Her fears of harm to her, her family and her staff are very real as far as she is concerned. Even as she chose her words carefully, there was fear in her voice. And what other republican members of Congress have in the past expressed concern for their safety or the safety of their families after criticizing Donald Trump, or is she the only one? In fact, she’s not the only republican who has been and continues to be threatened for breaking with her president. Quotes that follow are provided via Apple Intelligence.
Liz Cheney, former member of the House of Representatives leadership team and daughter of Vice-President Dick Cheney “faced threats and harassment, and she openly discussed the impact of her stance on her safety and that of her family. Donald J. Trump (DJT) also mentioned her in a hypothetical of a person being shot in the face (“let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”) Likewise, Adam Kinzinger, former Congressman from Illinois “has shared stories of how these threats affected his family, prompting him to take safety precautions.” Fred Upton (Michigan) has mentioned the concerns regarding safety for himself and his family following his decision to speak out against the [then] former president. Paul Ryan, once Speaker of the House of Representatives and republican candidate for Vice-President in 2012 says that part of his conflict with Trump comes from Ryan’s Wisconsin sense of decency.
“We’ve gotten so numbed by [Trump’s outrageous remarks] . . . Not in government, but where we live our lives, we have a responsibility to try and rebuild. Don’t call a woman a ‘horse face.’ Don’t cheat on your wife. Don’t cheat on anything. Be a good person. Set a good example.”
These virtues are somehow lost on DJT. John Katko, republican congressman from NY supported Donald Trump until the January 6th insurrection attempt. By then, he had had enough and voted to impeach the President. Soon after, “Upton mentioned the concerns regarding safety for himself and his family following his decision to speak out against the former president.” Upton decided to not run for reelection. Trump however did, and here we are, watching a bad movie for the second time. Mike Simpson of Idaho followed Katko out the door, as he added his voice to “the hostile environment he experienced, particularly following his votes related to impeachment.” Dan Newhouse, Richard Burr, Charlie Dent, David Valadao, Mark Sanford and Michael McCaul are other republicans who serve or served their party loyally in the House and who were personally threatened for their votes or comments against Donald Trump. Former U.S. Senators Mitt Romney (UT), and Jeff Flake (AZ) and current Senator Susan Collins (ME) could also add their voices to Lisa Murkowski’s and confirm that the threats are real. And these are all republicans. If he’ll harass and instill fear in his fellow republicans, imagine what this unstable genius has planned for the democrats!
In fact, democratic officials have fared much worse (there was an attempt to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer by some armed militia group and an assassination attempt against democratic governor Josh Shapiro just last week. It was a redux of the attack on then Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Had she been home, she instead or in addition to her husband would have received the blows of a hammer.
The issue–at least so far–is not Donald Trump instructing that someone do something to a person he hates. His usual practice is to humiliate them publicly, wounding them in the arena of American opinion like a skilled matador wounds and weakens the bull. We know from people like Michael Cohen who once worked many years for DJT that Donald Trump does not spell things out. According to Cohen, an admitted, bold-face liar himself (which is one reason Trump may have hired him in the first place), when Trump wants a Coke, he does not say “Someone get me a Coke.” He just says “Coke.” It’s up to the people around him to fill in the blanks with what they think he means. What POTUS has been doing all along is creating an alternate reality and using a sort of military parlance with well known “dog whistles.” For example, when the violence from the Proud Boys picked up, he didn’t tell them to stop. He said “stand back and stand by.” Stand by, as if “I-might-find-you-useful-in-the-future.” He claimed that the January 6, 2021 gathering of his MAGA crowd in Washington was supposed to be peaceful. But a day or two earlier he tweeted “It will be wild” and he told the audience that day that they needed to “fight like hell.” When you call your followers “patriots” and “heroes” and the other half of the country “traitors” and the media, federal judges, members of Congress you dislike and so on the “enemies of the people,” you are not promoting peace or harmony. Instead, you are engendering and empowering a spirit of fear. And a careless word can cause deadly harm in an given circumstance (as Henry II and Thomas Becket found out.)
THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF FEAR
And speaking of spirits, Christians understand that just are there are good guys (angels) in the spiritual realms, there are also bad guys (demons.) One of these good guys saved my life in Vietnam by pushing me to the ground as a mortar exploded nearby. Bad guys, on the other hand, tried to wreck my life in that attack and afterwards. The conventional understanding of Scripture which may not be accurate here is that demons are the persona of a lost race of people described in Genesis 6:1ff. However, these vestiges of this titan race gratify themselves through us. They are not transcendant enough to have abandoned their carnal desires. Thus, an entity that is satiated by anger will encourage vulnerable people to lose their temper. Other bad spirits involved in madness try to get other people to lose their minds. Spirits with lascivious or prurient natures (e.g., incubi) entice people in that direction. And just as Nero enjoyed to some degree the conflagration of Rome after his followers set the city ablaze, demons inspire pyromaniacs to set fires and then they, themselves, fan the flames. In other words, we by our actions somehow empower them. As Martin Luther was (perhaps dubiously) claimed to have said: “I don’t fear the devil, but I fear people with the devil in them.” I have other posts on this site that go into this a bit deeper, so I don’t want to belabor the point. Nor am I implying that schizophrenia and other diseases and disorders causing diminished mental capacity have their roots in the spiritual world. Most probably don’t but an intractable few may. Suffice it to say that there are many demons of fear in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world at this moment, trolling weak minds, stirring up discontent and causing people (including God’s people) to lose sleep at night because of fear. Add to this the mistrust towards government, the hatred towards people of color, trans and gays that is on the uptick and the demonizing of people of liberal persuasion and you can understand that there is a perfect storm brewing.
YET . . .
Inhabitants have faced well-founded fear for most of their experience on this continent. Indigenous Americans feared inter-tribal wars such as the Comanche and Apache and the Osage and the Cherokee. There was famine, diseases such as smallpox carried by European settlers and so on to fear as well. Americans on the frontier feared attacks by wild animals and indigenous natives. During the industrial revolution people feared a loss of their employment and during the Great Depression a loss of their investments. All of this was somewhat replaced by the fear of nuclear war during the mid-to-late twentieth century, and today we have other things to fear, whether it’s robots, artificial intelligence or would-be dictators. I’ve read that that many decades ago, when a young woman met a young man, her first thought might be “does he drink?” Today, the first thought is reported to be “Will he hurt me?” Certainly not every woman thinks of these questions, but once again it is fear. Fear can save our life if we let it keep us from taking some rash action. Fear can also cause our death if it paralyzes us in the face of danger.
Fear can also be good, particularly in a Biblical sense. Proverbs 9:10 says in part “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom . . .” We are taught to fear God as well as to love him. How then are these terms (fear and love) not mutually exclusive? I like to answer this question using whales. Trainers at Seaquariums and Marinelands around the world work with Orcas (killer whales) who, when grown, can easily weigh three tonnes. As they work month after month doing three shows a day, trainers come to love their whales and that love may be mutual as far as how orcas express love. But trainers also fear them. Because every few years, a trained orca in captivity goes rogue. They abruptly grab a 125 pound trainer by the wrist or by the hair and drag them into the tank before plunging almost forty feet to the bottom in a matter of seconds. Why? Perhaps they are just playing. Or, they are bored. Or, they are angry. Or, can this be how orcas express love? Either way, it will take some time for rescue teams to remove the lifeless body of the trainer from the tank. Now, imagine this play out in an ocean, with a swimmer and a forty tonne humpback whale in water four thousand feet deep! Or a whale who lovingly swims with a human and then accidentally kills him by slapping his fluke on the surface of the ocean, crushing his rib cage in the process. So we love God, but are not overly familiar with Him. He is our King. And we should be respectful of His station at all times. It’s not like he would strike someone dead for cursing Him. You just don’t do it, especially since your life depends on His protection. Without His care of which you are likely unaware, you might not wake up tomorrow morning.
If this were truly a Christian-oriented administration, the watch-word of the day would not be “Trust Trump” as the President’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says. It would be “In God we trust”, not a mortal man, not even a saintly man if we even had a saint for President.
HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?
Unless two dozen or so republicans in Congress start voting in the national interest and to support the Constitution, there is little that can be done before 2027. Even then, we will have the same administration was we have now, though at least if the republicans lose their majority standing, there will be a check or guardrail on the amoral, immoral, or unconstitutional policies of this government.
God is giving us a little more time to put our affairs in order before something even worse arrives. What could be worse? Depression? War? It is hard to know but literally anything is possible. I’d encourage everyone to use this opportunity wisely and not let this fear paralyze or rule of you.
