Opinion/Editorial
AMERICA: FROZEN IN WINTER FEAR
A river of terror runs just beneath the ice of the nation’s snow-covered discontent. The black dark news of these days and nights, as the mass media continues to rock and reel from no longer having the daily entertainment Donald Trump delivered during his failed presidency. He did not fail the media, he transformed it. What was once a disincorporated selection of news channels, papers, and Internet sites transformed under Trump to a modern updated, and electronically driven system of roiling tabloid bodies of spewing misinformation, distrust, and racism.
America is afraid of the virus, white supremacy, global warming, fires, tornados, floods, and much more. This fear is stoked like hot coals every minute, of every hour of every day across the land. The fear is managed in waves. The virus charges into the news, like one tsunami after another, each wave having a different name. Global warming and its effects come in waves, as well. The fires, the storms, rising waters, and more all moderated at levels of emotion never seen before outside of the great wars. The news once consisted of reports of localized death and destruction. Things like auto and air accidents dominated headlines and major television presentations. Election news was short-term and not considered or built into something of great interest, much less of great fearful interest.
People, back in the ‘olden times’ of the fifties, sixties, and even seventies were interested in what was going on around them and out in the world, they were not afraid of those things, except in very extraordinary circumstances. The nation has not become ‘frozen in winter’ by accident. It was, and remains, impossible to accurately predict what the homologation of electronic communications elements (cell phones, smart televisions, and the Internet) will lead to socially or even economically, but some rather low and scummy characters were certainly better at predicting than others. People like Murdoc, Hannity, and Carlson, come immediately to mind, along with Donald Trump, Marjorie Greene, and a few more like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, and a few more come to mind, have made millions upon millions by gambling that the tabloids of yesteryear (think the National Enquirer and the London newspapers) could be expanded and exploded to not only supplement what were ‘normal’ news organizations and entities and replace them.
America in this emotional deep freeze of fear is new to those of us experiencing it, but not to historians. Since the early times of organized religion, when preachers and priests stood up on high podiums reign sermons down on their minions and followers, an understanding of how important having a ‘voice’ was. Nobody else could reach many people at one time to tell or teach them anything, since there were no mass-produced books or papers of any kind, and in that discovery was the rise of media and political power.
The great question that must be asked of the citizenry of the United States is what can be done about moderating and lessening this national fear? When fear is the motivator then any expectation of rational action to respond to it becomes more than problematic. In fact, it becomes, almost invariably non-existent. The only hope is through education, learning, understanding and then acting to begin cutting back on attack strategies (like buying more guns or spending even more on National Defense) and coming to understand that most of the things we fear in the night can be resolved with real knowledge and a good measure of accommodation.
