The Decade of Fear and Anger

Having established in today's earlier post that today is indeed the end of a decade, it might be tempting to tied a bow around this otherwise random selection of 10 years and give it meaning. 

Sadly, I think I can.

It was the decade of fear and anger. 

Maybe it was the previous decade's fault?

The first ten years of this century began with something to really be afraid of with the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  That same set of ten years ended with a recession that nearly destroyed a global economy because of the greed and excesses of a small percentage of players who already had most of the money and wanted more of it; we had every reason to be angry at them has millions of people lost their jobs and their savings as a tidal wave of foreclosures ripped people from their homes. 

As this decade began, things began to get better. It wasn't magical and it wasn't fast but we were moving forward, trying to make life better. 

But not everyone felt that. A lot of people felt left behind by the economic recovery and the tides of history. These people held on to their fear, their anger. It was a potent force for any one who was dumb enough to weaponize it.

Donald Trump was just that dumb enough. 

I say "dumb" because utilizing fear and anger as a power source for a political movement is not sustainable except to stoke people to greater levels of fear and anger.  The leader of such a movement cannot offer anything more than to remind you to be afraid and angry at the "others" who are trying to undermine your way of life. 

Fearmongering and hatemongering is a recipe for holding on to power but it does precious little to actually get anything done.  The people who rage in the darkness against what they fear and what they hate are, ironically, not going to benefit from a power structure fueled by that fear and hate.  

As we began the decade, clawing our way out of the rubble of shattered sense of security and the dark abyss of the Great Recession, there was a sense of moving towards the future, however slow and shakily that progress felt. As we end this decade, it feels like we're moving backwards.  

There are too many powerful institutions of the media and of government who derive power from keeping a large segment of the population angry and afraid. It may be too much to hope that will change. 

But as tomorrow begins, as a new decade takes its first halting steps into the light, maybe we can move past fear and anger.