BY: TREVOR HEWITT
The twin towers fell a little over a month from my ninth birthday. I remember my mom taking me out of Ms. Baker’s dingy khaki portable; we went and picked up my six-year-old sister from her class. My mother ushering us into her silver Chrysler, we then headed to my youngest sister at daycare. At this point, I, the oldest, started to get a little suspicious. As we pulled into the daycare’s parking lot, I asked my mom just what the heck was going on. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her response. “Have you noticed that there are no planes in the sky today?”
For a long time after that day, I was terrified of flying. I don’t exactly know where my fears stemmed from; I was just a naive kid who was afraid that someone on my plane would use it to do something very bad (which, come to think of it, is basically how my parents explained 9/11 to me).
The times that I did end up flying, the only thing that would console my frightened preteen self would be the promise of free candy bars and exotically-flavoured potato chips (this is before we had poutine-flavoured Lays, mind you). It wasn’t until well into my teenage years that I got over my fear, however the solution was simple. I realized that, as cliché as it is, terror is what the bad people in this world want you to feel – that’s why they’re called terrorists.
Hate divides us – it stops the sharing of our collective experience. Hate paralyzes us – it prevents us from living our lives to the fullest degree. Hate blinds us – it makes us do, say and feel things that are irrational, incorrect and based on nothing else but fear – one of the most dangerous emotions there is.
Donald Trump knows this all too well. He has built an entire campaign on these two emotions. His proposed policies are meant to divide, his rhetoric meant to instill hate through fear. Trump’s platform contains so little substance, I hesitate to refer to it as such – it’s basically propaganda.
On Dec. 7, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S., in response to the deadly attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. The political response to this announcement has been both swift and severe. The day after Trump’s statement, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the comments disqualified Trump from the presidency. In addition, multiple politicians, both Republican and Democrat, have since called for his withdrawal from the race. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is among many critical of Trump’s recent proposal. “It’s not what this country stands for,” he said in a press conference Dec. 8. “Freedom of religion is a fundamental constitutional principle. This is not conservatism.”
As much as we don’t always see eye to eye, I’d have to agree with Ryan on this one. Trump represents an unprecedented scenario in U.S. politics. Plenty of times there have been contenders that the more established members of either party are unwilling to endorse – they’ve never been leading the pack though. With Trump enjoying a comfortable 35 per cent lead in the polls there is one question worth asking – why is his platform working?
To understand the answer, first we need to look at his supporter base. For starters, the majority of Trump’s supporters are middle-aged men without college degrees. Polls have also indicated that Americans with more education are less likely to support Trump’s candidacy.
Source: July Washington Post – ABC News poll
Trudging into a demographic that is less educated than the average American, his brand of conservatism preys on the uneducated and the uninformed. Trump’s rhetoric is meant to invoke fear – this is why he loves rehashing tragedies for political points. Most of his supporters are not the same violent, racist individuals that he is. However, they’re scared, and in their fear, they latch on. Trump leaves them feeling assured of their safety, even if the trade-off is policies based on hate (this should remind us of a not-so-distant period in European history).
I’m thankful for my upbringing. Not once did my parents ever make mention of 9/11 being racially or religiously charged. It was always explained to me as a bunch of bad people who hurt a bunch of people minding their own business in New York City. Despite this version of events being oversimplified, I’m happy it’s the one I was told – it meant that my fear was rooted in abstract concepts like good versus evil, as opposed to violent imagery of Kalashnikov-wielding extremists.
I think this fact, that my fear was rooted in abstract concepts, and not bigotry, is why I was able to get over it with such relative ease. For this reason, I have a lot of sympathy for many of Trump’s supporters – I really do. I’m sure that many did not have their fears rationalized and explained to them as liberally as I did. I’m sure that many were told that tragedies or hardships they grew up experiencing, whether socioeconomically or violence-based, were the fault of specific groups. In the end – they are scared, just like I was afraid to fly as a kid. After seeing so many instances of horrible people doing horrible things, they are worried about their lives and the lives of the ones they love. I don’t really have any fears now that I’m older, aside from heights, something I’ve dealt with as long as I can remember. Now, what scares me is seeing someone able to capitalize on peoples’ fears, like Trump has.
I don’t have some sort of quick solution for how we help these people rationalize and get over their fears. It’s, admittedly, part of a much larger problem. But one thing is for sure – Trump’s capitalization on these emotions needs to stop – it’s disgusting, intolerant and rooted in racism.
I think Sen. Bernie Sanders said it best in his Dec. 8. interview with Jimmy Fallon. “What somebody like Trump is trying to do is divide us up,” Sanders told Fallon. “A few months ago we were supposed to hate Mexicans. He thinks they’re all criminals and rapists. Now he thinks we’re supposed to hate Muslims,” Sanders said. “That kind of crap is not going to work in the United States of America.”
