American fear is Trump's hope
Analysis: Hillary Clinton may have much more experience than Donald Trump in counterterrorism and policy management, but the Republican presidential candidate employs the correct vocabulary for an increasingly terrified public.
For generations, the United States has been a country located between two oceans, secure in the knowledge that global terror was far away, that it would not reach its shores. It was self-absorbed, sometimes arrogant, persistently fulfilling the role it had assumed: To be a lighthouse to the world. Until a few people with utility knives crashed planes into its economy fortress in New York and its security fortress in Washington. Since then, every hint of a terror attack or attempted attack on US soil evokes all the black demons of fear, panic and a burning desire for revenge.
It doesn't even matter if this young Afghan is the man behind the attacks or not. A situation in which America is afraid can cause the country to unite around the person who is promising, in unambiguous language, to expel immigrants, ban the entry of Muslims and build a huge wall on the border. When the feeling of personal security grows weak, when an entire country anxiously follows improvised explosive devices, gas containers and wires which could have blown up and killed people—like in the Boston Marathon, where improvised explosive devices turned a sports event into a bloodbath and the perpetrators were immigrants—the public doesn’t look for politically correct language, but rather looks for words which can be translated into a firm hand and a quick response, words that Trump knows how to use.
Hillary Clinton has much more experience than Trump in counterterrorism and policy management, but he has the right vocabulary for a frightened public. He is the only one capable of saying: We will hit them, we will destroy them, we will banish them, we will take their visas—promises which are backed by not a single plan nor a clue on how to implement them.
But at times like these, the voters are not interested in insights about the complexity of the situation, like the ones provided by the Democratic presidential candidate. Such statements fail to penetrate beyond the panic.
Trump, on the other hand, will allow the fear to prevail, because it's his best chance of winning the elections. This fear is used to surf upon waves of anxiety and hatred. And he has even "recruited" Israel to his battle: In a telephone interview on Fox News' morning show, he said that due to the current administration's stand, the police are afraid to check suspects based on religion or ethnic descent (profiling).
"Our local police, they know who a lot of these people are. They’re afraid to do anything about it because they don’t want to be accused of profiling, and they don’t want to be accused of all sorts of things. You know, in Israel, they profile. They’ve done an unbelievable job, as good as you can do. They see somebody that's suspicious, they will profile. They will take that person and they will check out."
Trump could not have gained much from the situation had he not grown stronger in recent weeks and narrowed the gap with Clinton, who is still leading the very tight race. He has grown stronger among young people, among Hispanics and even among African-Americans. After he acknowledged that Obama was indeed born in the US, the African-Americans are no longer ashamed to vote for him: From 3 percent of the black community's support he has climbed to a two-digit number within mere days.
According to Nate Silver, the pollsters' guru, Clinton's chance of winning is 60 percent, but only a month ago her chance was close to 90 percent according to the same pollster.
After being dominated by the medical lexicon for a week, the election discourse is now controlled by words taken from the world of horror and rage. For the next 50 days, Trump won't stop dancing on the blood for he knows very well that it is the blood which provides his election campaign any life.
