PANIC! The Role of Fear & Loathing in Politics

PANIC! The Role of Fear & Loathing in Politics

Its time to PANIC! Trump is out to get you! Panic! Be afraid. The “other guy” [i.e.. The political party and leader you happen to dislike] is not going to keep you “safe”. In Canada’s 2025 election one side uses loathing as a weapon, the other fear. My thought for today has nothing to do with who is right – it’s just that there’s no way an election dominated by fear and loathing will end up having a good result. Here one victim of these emotions: I read just today that one of the unintended consequences of the emotionally charged election is that votes for the smaller parties has plummeted: for the first time in many decades the big 2 parties are projected to earn over 80% of the vote. This perception by the voters that there are only 2 choices: between the “good” guy and the “bad” guy smells of a simplistic, dumbed down perception of reality where there are only choices – this is know as dualism. It also smells of the “lesser evil” problem which is best explained by this famous quote from Hannah Arendt, a famous American/German/Jewish political philosopher:

“In their moral justification, the argument of the lesser evil has played a prominent role. If you are confronted with two evils, the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Its weakness has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil.”

Let’s see what fear and loathing has done during this CDN election, with the understanding that this is an issue that transcends this blip in history, but is rather an ongoing problem because when emotions over ride our thinking we make decisions that may seem great in the short term, but are usually negative in the long term: think Climate and Ecological Collapse [more on that later]. Three months ago the Conservatives were all but assured that they would win. Now its all but certain that the Liberals will win. We all know what happened: Donald Trump. Most people only talk about how this has made more Canadians patriotic and brought us together. True. But there is another side to the emotional state most Canadians are in: fear. I know that fear has its place as a survival mechanism in a dangerous world. But I also know that fear dumbs down our thinking into a di-polar choice between only 2 extremes: fight or flight, aggression or fear. I am not a fan of either. I think both of them result, when issues relate to long term and complex issues like those involved in a federal election, in very, very bad choices.

Now I must state by bias, I am not a fan of either of the main parties, especially during this election. I see the Conservatives as overly focused on the extreme of “fight/aggression” and the Liberals using “flight/fear” as a political tool to win an election that they would most certainly have lost if Donald Trump had not appeared on the world stage of the Bogeyman. You see, I am a Green Party candidate in this Federal Election, but I don’t see myself as a politician because the only side I take is the side of Mother Earth and the children who are not yet born – and both of them don’t have a voice and do not vote. That means Every time I speak during this election, I don’t smear the other candidates but instead compliment them (when deserved) because that would make me just another aggressive politician. On the other hand, I find myself disgusted that the politics of fear is so dominating the minds of most of the voters I meet on the campaign because the result is that real discussion of other substantive issues become unimportant and emotionally irrelevant. We may talk about other issues but the reality is that if a voter is fearful most are going to vote Liberal. I am not saying this is the right or the wrong choice, what I am saying is that a choice made dominated mostly by fear is a terrible way to run a country. With this in mind let’s see if there are news sources that are thinking like I am.

Here is a commentary from the National Post, a right wing CDN news paper. Yes they have their biases, but still that does not mean they are always wrong. [1]

Six in 10 Liberal voters said they were motivated primarily by “a fear of what the future holds for Canada,” with the unpredictable U.S. President Donald Trump threatening trade relations. Trump has tapped into an especially deep-seated fear among Quebec voters, who were most likely to say their vote is being driven by fear. Voters in Quebec were the most likely of any region to say their votes are being driven by fear, at 44 per cent, compared to 40 per cent by hope. A lot of Quebecers, even sovereigntists, are saying they see Trump as an existential threat.

When I read that I was concerned that because I know the biases of this paper that this data was being “spun”. So I checked out an article from India; I figure they did not have the same kind of obvious anti-Liberal bias. [2]

Carney, with his background as Governor of the Bank of Canada and later the Bank of England, is no populist—but he’s increasingly using nationalist tropes in defence of liberal democracy. Trump has offered Carney a convenient villain. Carney’s fear appeal seems to be mobilizing older voters and die hard Liberals. But the Conservative message of hope in resonating amount youngster, first time voters looking for change, especially those burdened by debt and disillusionment. The emotional split is clear: hope vs fear, optimism vs anxiety. In a country known for moderation Canada’s 2025 election is shaping up toe be a referendum on emotion. Carney is betting that fear of Trump dominated future will carry him across the finish line.

Oh dear, it appears that far away India is agreeing the facts as presented in the National Post. Let’s try another, more left leaning news source, to see if we can get a dissenting opinion as it relates to the impact of fear. Here is a part of an article from Politico, a left leaning Canadian news source. [3]

The biggest factor by far is President Trump and the shock and awe at announcements that we heard, not just about annexation and tariffs, which certainly got everybody’s attention, but also just the general flavor and the cavalcade of announcements — like, “Yeah, we’re going to build a resort in Gaza. Stanley Greenberg, who was a Clinton pollster, told me, “There’s three things that win an election. Number one is emotion, number two is emotion and number three is emotion.” So you get the point. Even though Canadians were very, very anxious and worried about tariffs and annexation and what the New World Order might look like and how they would fit into it, they actually had a really huge resurgence of hope. It says yeah, we’ll do what it takes to maintain our sovereignty and to reforge relationships in a world that’s going to be a lot different, and we know it’s going to be painful and risky, but we feel optimistic and hopeful that we can rise to this challenge.

Amazing. Another point of view comes to the seemingly exact opposite conclusion. Somehow the Liberals, from the above article, have “tapped into hope and not fear”. As you can see Politics is a slippery game. From what I have seen on the campaign trail this belief that votes for Carney are largely driven by Hope is not true. It’s a “hope” that Carney will “make me feel safer” . All that I have heard is people feeling safer with Carney, that he will be better able to deal with the threat of Trump. Now, whether or not that is correct is not the point, the point is that the voters I have met are really motivated by fear. Let’s try another less political news source, a Professor from the University of Dalhousie. [4]

This federal election is being described as the most consequential in modern Canadian history. The country is in a tariff and trade war with its closest ally, the United States, and President Donald Trump is threatening Canada’s sovereignty. No wonder Canadians are feeling anxious and fearful. And in times of crisis, people tend to look extra hard for leaders they can trust. Liberal Leader Mark Carney, a rookie in politics but an internationally respected economist, is enjoying a wave of momentum. Due to his stints as governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008-09 financial crash and the Bank of England during Brexit, he’s well-qualified to manage economic roller-coasters. Can his impressive CV help calm the fears of Canadians? Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, on the other hand, has been connecting with supporters by giving voice to their worries about the economy, jobs, crime and the housing crisis. He’s made people feel heard, but he’s also been accused of building his brand appeal by stoking — rather than soothing — Canadians’ fears about the future.

So what are you and I to do? Don’t let fear or loathing dominated your logical decision making, because the way we react to this “crisis” is how people will probably react when the Climate/Ecological crisis becomes so obvious that they risk being filled with fear and choose short term solutions that will only bring more future pain.

Be aware and try to work on this underlying driver of why people feel as they do: they are living on the edge – pay cheque to paycheque – many people live alone and have dysfunctional families and jobs that are part time and without benefits. Also our economic system has made us less and less self reliant – if food prices are too high, why don’t we just grow our own food as they did in UK in their victory gardens? If housing is too expensive why can’t families more in together, as our family has done? We could use what supposedly make us the worlds super species – our cerebral cortex – and stop panicking and stop wanting instant gratification but focus on long term solutions, a way of thinking known as 7^th generation thinking. Lastly, we need to see this crisis, and all crises, as opportunities to change, to make fundamental changes to how we run our economy, on not supporting anybody who supports Business as Usual [both main parties now want more pipelines], but instead live and vote inspired by the values in the Iroquois Incantation, the Thanksgiving Address known as “The Words That Come Before All Else”. [this is a responsive address where the audience replies to the speaker saying “Now our minds are one”, this was what I did at the end of my concluding statement in my last debate in Cornwall]

Now our minds are one

Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us, we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living beings. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give our greetings and our thanks to each other as People.