Fear itself

We have nothing to fear but, FDR famously said. I kind of remember hearing it, although he said it well before I was born. I may have heard it as a recording, or possibly from somebody else. Roosevelt was referring to the Great Depression of the 1930's, but the sentiment traces back at least as far as 16th Century Frentch writer Michel de Montaigne. 

No more. Today fear is a tool — to sell political agendas and, in passing, newspapers. “Be afraid,” says Michelle Cottle, an editorial writer for a newspaper called the New York Times, enthusiastically ratcheting up fear of Donald Trump.

"His capture of the Republican Party is essentially the political version of the mutant fungal outbreak that turned everyone into crazed zombies and wiped out civilization in 'The Last of Us',” Cottle says

Not to be outdone, a bunch of other Times pundits pile on.

All of this in service of an election that won’t happen for almost 18 months. The possibility that Trump might win that election is too terrifying to confront. 

(And there’s not a single vote to be taken for granted. The Times is also railing — already — against the mere possibility there might be a third-party candidate to muddy the waters. It can not be allowed. Not allowed, at least, if it might take a vote away from Trump's Democratic opponent. But then, they do that every four years, like clockwork.)

Really, we have better things to think about and any number of worse things to fear before then — pandemic viruses, raging forest fires, nuclear war, rising seas, failing crops, ravenous sharks, artificial intelligence (or maybe any kind of intelligence at all), TikTok.

We’d best be getting on with that. There'll be plenty of time to panic about The Donald next year.