The topic may not be very interesting as the answers are multiple and obvious. But I’m writing an explanation in order to better understand my anxiety and in so doing maybe find some comfort. Better yet, maybe someone will provide insights that will come close to removing a large portion of my nervousness if not all of it. I’ll explain more in the first comment post.
To explain my anxiety, I’m going to mention to specific recent occurrences that closely connect with this anxiety. One has to do with Trump’s constant attack on mail-in ballots and his repeated message that the election will be “rigged.” Here’s a tweet from today:
The second incident is the Trump administration recent use of the Department of Homelands (DHS), and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to protect federal building and statutes–using unmarked vans with these personnel in camo, without any visible identification, grabbing at least two people off the street and taking them to another location to question them.
There’s news the Trump administration wants to do the same thing in Chicago, and possibly other cities.
To me, Trump’s intention for this seems to be the following: a) create an image of strength and toughness and b) hope violence erupts, and use this to continue or escalate the use of this tactic. I can’t help but feels he wants violence, so that he can use this to use more force. The arsonist puts out the fire he started and claim to be the hero.
I’m worried this could work.
I’m worried that many Americans will doubt the legitimacy of the election, and that there will be great uncertainty and chaos.
But I think I can pinpoint the source of my worry. The worry is based on uncertainty about three categories of Americans. One group are hardcore Trump supporters. The second group are uncertain and confused about what to believe, partly or largely because they’re not very interested in news or politics. The third group know Trump is unfit, untrustworthy and unreliable; or will soon conclude that if they see enough blatant examples.
I don’t have a good sense about the size of these groups. If you could tell me that most Americans really don’t trust Trump, that they don’t take his claims about a “rigged election” seriously, and they would strongly oppose him if he didn’t leave or continued using federal agencies as a police force–I would be far less stressed out. But I’m uncertain about all this, and I think this uncertainty is the main source of my anxiety.
8/27/2020
Biden makes the obvious point here. But again, how many Americans will buy Trump’s con–or, equally important, how many will be confused and uncertain? I just worry the group that is confused and uncertain is large. I really hope that’s not the case.