One of the subjects recently flowing through our household has been the practice of cold-calling law students in class. This is where, out of the blue, a professor will ask a student to comment on the topic at hand. Some professors have apparently been tempering the practice by letting students know which weeks they are in the target zone, so to speak. One student took the notion and ran with it, saying that while they were on the subject, they would rather not be cold-called at all.
This led some – mostly old lawyers, probably – to cry foul over what snowflakes the students had become, and offer as justification for their stance the worst reason for doing anything: because that’s the way we’ve always done it. I don’t care much one way or the other, except it reminded me once more of what a fabulous and amoral motivator fear can be. Maybe students prepare better out of fear of public humiliation, but is that really how we want to motivate future leaders?
Countless Americans are afraid right now, and with good reason. All non-citizens must live in constant terror, as Trump has made clear possession of a green card or a citizen spouse is no longer a ticket to freedom from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). To my mind, this makes the US officially a state sponsor of terrorism. That’s a lovely turn of irony, given its vote with two of the four countries we currently tag as such – Syria and North Korea – against a recent UN resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine. It’s so hard to keep track of which side we’re on these days.
Americans of colour everywhere are more fearful; in addition to making diversity, equity and inclusion dirty words, Trump has taken a blowtorch to every barrier to race-based discrimination he could find. American women are more fearful – and if they aren’t, they should be – as executive orders have endangered their health everywhere from the workplace to the womb, and the fear factor in the LGBTQ+ community is off the chart.
What’s different now is those above groups, the ones traditionally with the most to fear, have some new and odd bedfellows, as Trump and his toadies first aimed their weaponised government at big game, such as federal judges, Ivy League colleges, and some of the nation’s biggest law firms. I’m thinking their thinking goes like this: if we can make the big shots tremble, terrorising the rest of the population will be easier. Even his toadies are his toadies only because they fear for their offices and their lives if their lips are ever dislodged from Trump’s rump.
His tariffs have put the fear of communism into the business community, from mom-and-pop toy stores that buy everything from China to the CEOs of giants like Walmart, Amazon and Mattel. And he’s managed to make sure every federal employee has either been fired or fears it.
Trump’s election will enable his minions to ignore “woke” calls to use the all-inclusive “happy holidays” this December, so they’ll feel free to say “Christmas” as much as they want. Though between layoffs and tariffs, they won’t be able to afford a happy one.
I find myself in the odd position of sometimes rooting for things to get significantly worse, for if by chance Trump’s moronic and chaotic policies don’t tank the economy, we may vote ourselves into decades of authoritarian rule.
Making people afraid in order to serve your own ends is about as cowardly, and lazy and unimaginative as it gets. But it’s an effective strategy, and rarely if ever has it been implemented here with as comprehensive a reach. Sometimes things seem almost normal, but the undercurrent of unease never goes away. To tweak Franklin D Roosevelt, fear itself may not be the only thing we have to fear, but it may be the most important and difficult one to overcome.
Jonathan Kronstadt is a freelance writer working in Washington DC.
