而总统唐纳德·特朗普说他淡化了小说的威胁冠状病毒今年早些时候，因为他不想“制造恐慌”，所以出现了一个明显的矛盾:他已经进行了一次连任竞选，他的总统任期的大部分时间都是基于助长恐惧。
2020年9月9日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)在华盛顿白宫外交接待室宣布了他的最高法院潜在提名人名单。特朗普还回答了关于冠状病毒和鲍勃·伍德沃德关于他的新书的问题。
从2016年竞选期间对无证移民发出的可怕警告，到上任后不久发布的穆斯林禁令，再到现在警告郊区将在拜登政府的统治下被“摧毁”，特朗普利用恐惧——往往带有种族主义色彩——来点燃他的基础，赶走选民。
尽管有些人可能认为恐慌是恐惧的极端表现，但总统有时会交替使用这两个词。
“我不想让人们害怕，”特朗普周三表示，并解释了他为什么在3月份接受资深记者鲍勃·伍德沃德采访时承认，他故意淡化新冠肺炎构成的危险，尽管他理解真正的威胁。“我不想制造恐慌。”
不清楚他有什么证据，如果有的话，表明如果美国人被直接告知关于病毒的所有事实，他们会感到恐慌，或者他自己是否担心受损的经济可能会损害他的连任希望。
但不到24小时后，总统似乎有了相反的冲动——周四上午，他在推特上夸大了如果他不连任，这个国家会是什么样子。
特朗普说:“民主党人在全国代表大会上甚至从未提及法律与秩序这个词。”发微博。“他们就是从那里来的。如果我不赢，美国的郊区将充斥着低收入项目、无政府主义者、煽动者、抢劫者，当然还有“友好抗议者”
民主党人在他们的全国代表大会上甚至没有提到法律和秩序这个词。他们就是从那里来的。如果我没有赢，美国的郊区将充斥着低收入项目、无政府主义者、煽动者、抢劫者，当然还有“友好抗议者”。
——唐纳德·j·特朗普(@realDonaldTrump)2020年9月10日
特朗普推动恐惧的悠久历史
这不是特朗普采取的独特语气，这就是为什么他周三多次宣布不想煽动恐慌，这对于一位拼命想赢得连任的总统来说似乎是不合适的。
他的社交媒体平台充满了夸大或毫无根据的说法，即美国城市正在被夷为平地，“暴徒”和无法无天的行为可能会接管郊区，数百万人——包括外国人——可能会通过邮寄选票进行选民欺诈。
而且还不止他的推文。在他的竞选集会和白宫官方活动中——几乎总是深入研究政治和对他的民主党对手前副总统乔·拜登的攻击——他都不回避利用恐惧来激励他的支持者。
周三，在白宫的同一场活动中，他声称不想作为国家领导人煽动恐慌，他这样做是通过描绘一幅黑暗的画面，展示如果拜登当选总统并有机会提名最高法院法官，美国将会是什么样子。
特朗普宣称，“激进的法官将抹去第二修正案，压制政治言论，并要求纳税人资助极端的晚期堕胎，”但没有提供证据。“他们将赋予非民选官员摧毁数百万美国就业岗位的权力。他们将从效忠誓词中删除“在上帝之下”的字样。他们会单方面宣布死刑违宪，即使是对最堕落的大屠杀凶手。他们将清除国界，削弱警察部门，并为无政府主义者、暴徒、暴力罪犯和恐怖分子提供新的保护。”
同样在周三，在一个采访他在接受福克斯新闻采访时警告说，如果拜登获胜，“中国最终将拥有美国，并拥有它”，并且“你将经历一场前所未有的股市崩盘。”
特朗普在竞选活动中和多次采访中向数千人反复做出了这些可怕的预测。
加剧恐惧帮助特朗普入主白宫
回顾过去，加剧恐惧和不确定性有助于推动特朗普当选总统。
“人们很害怕，”特朗普在2016年赢得新泽西州初选后说。
2016年7月21日，共和党总统候选人唐纳德·特朗普在俄亥俄州克利夫兰市举行的2016年共和党全国代表大会上发表获奖感言。
那年，他在共和党全国代表大会上的获奖感言以恐惧为主题——让人想起他今天的信息。
“对我们警察的袭击，以及我们城市中的恐怖主义，威胁到我们的生活方式，”特朗普当时说。“任何没有意识到这种危险的政治家都不适合领导我们的国家。今晚观看这个演讲的美国人已经看到了最近我们街道上的暴力画面和我们社区的混乱。许多人亲眼目睹了这一暴力事件;有些人甚至成了它的受害者。”
早在升任总统之前，总统就在媒体上大声煽动恐惧。
1989年，特朗普在包括《纽约时报》在内的纽约报纸上登了四个整版广告，呼吁对五名黑人和拉丁裔少年实施死刑，他们被称为“中央公园五人组”，后来被错误地判定犯有在中央公园慢跑时野蛮强奸一名受攻击妇女的罪行。
这是唐纳德·特朗普拿出的呼吁执行中央公园五号的整版广告。
尽管特朗普总统坚称他们有罪，但他们后来被DNA证据证明无罪。pic.twitter.com/vspZemnW93
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix)2018年2月10日
恐惧是一种政治力量
利用恐惧，尤其是利用种族主义恐惧作为政治武器，不是特朗普提出的想法。政客们总是迎合它。
在1968年的暴乱中，理查德·尼克松强调了“法律和秩序”的必要性罗纳德·里根(Ronald Regan)在1976年创造了“福利女王”一词，利用美国人对非裔美国人的种族主义观点，他说“福利女王”使用80个名字、30个地址、15个电话号码来收集粮票、社会保障、四位不存在的已故退伍军人丈夫的退伍军人福利以及福利。1988年，同样的对犯罪的恐惧和种族主义态度产生了老布什臭名昭著的“威利·霍顿”广告。
特朗普在2016年的选举中密切遵循了这一策略，调查显示，他的支持者比大多数成为犯罪受害者的人更担心。
根据a调查由公共宗教研究所在那一年完成的调查显示，四分之三的特朗普支持者害怕成为犯罪受害者，而总体比例为63%。
Trump says he didn't want to 'create panic' over the pandemic, but stoking fear has been his trademark: ANALYSIS
While PresidentDonald Trumpsaid he downplayed the threat of the novelcoronavirusearlier this year because he did not "want to create panic," there's a glaring contradiction: He has run a reelection campaign -- and based much of his presidency -- on promoting fear.
From dire warnings about undocumented immigrants during his run in 2016, and issuing a Muslim ban shortly after taking office, to now warning the suburbs would be "destroyed" under a Biden administration, Trump has used fear -- often laced with racist undertones -- to fire up his base and turn out voters.
And while some might view panic as an extreme manifestation of fear, the president has at times used the words interchangeably.
“I don’t want people to be frightened," Trump said Wednesday, explaining why he admitted in a March interview with the veteran journalist Bob Woodward that he intentionally downplayed the danger posed by COVID-19, despite understanding the true threat. "I don’t want to create panic."
It wasn't clear what evidence he had, if any, that Americans would react with panic if told a straight version of all the facts about the virus -- or whether he, himself, feared a damaged economy might hurt his reelection hopes.
But less than 24 hours later, the president seemed to lean on the opposite impulse -- with a tweet Thursday morning exaggerating what the country would look like if he was not reelected.
"The Democrats never even mentioned the words LAW & ORDER at their National Convention,” Trumptweeted. “That’s where they are coming from. If I don’t win, America’s Suburbs will be OVERRUN with Low Income Projects, Anarchists, Agitators, Looters and, of course, ‘Friendly Protesters’."
The Democrats never even mentioned the words LAW & ORDER at their National Convention. That’s where they are coming from. If I don’t win, America’s Suburbs will be OVERRUN with Low Income Projects, Anarchists, Agitators, Looters and, of course, “Friendly Protesters”.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)September 10, 2020
Trump’s long history of pushing fear
This is not a unique tone for Trump to take, which is why his multiple proclamations Wednesday of not wanting to incite panic seem off-brand for a president desperately trying to win reelection.
His social media platforms are full of claims -- exaggerated or baseless -- that American cities are burning to the ground, “thugs” and lawlessness could take over the suburbs, and that millions -- including foreigners -- could commit voter fraud with mail-in ballots.
And it doesn’t stop with his tweets. In both his campaign rallies and official White House events -- which almost always delve deeply into politics and attacks on his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden -- he doesn’t shy away from using fear to motivate his supporters.
At the same event at the White House Wednesday where he claimed to not want to incite panic as the country's leader, he did so by painting a dark picture of what the United States would look like if Biden was elected president and had the opportunity to nominate Supreme Court justices.
“Radical justices will erase the Second Amendment, silence political speech and require taxpayers to fund extreme late-term abortion,” Trump proclaimed, without providing evidence. “They will give unelected bureaucrats the power to destroy millions of American jobs. They will remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance. They will unilaterally declare the death penalty unconstitutional, even for the most depraved mass murderers. They will erase national borders, cripple police departments and grant new protections to anarchists, rioters, violent criminals and terrorists.”
Also on Wednesday, in aninterviewwith Fox News, he warned that if Biden wins, "China will end up owning the United States, owning it" and that "you will have a stock market crash the likes of which you've never seen before."
Trump has repeatedly made those dire predictions to thousands on the campaign trail and in multiple interviews.
Stoking fear helped send Trump to the White House
Looking even farther back, stoking fear and uncertainty helped propel Trump to the presidency.
“People are scared,” Trump said in 2016 after winning the state of New Jersey in the primaries.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on July 21, 2016.
His acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention that year centered on a theme of fear -- reminiscent of his message today.
“The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” Trump said then. “Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country. Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally; some have even been its victims.”
Long before his rise to the presidency, the president loudly stoked fear in the media.
In 1989, Trump placed four full-page ads in New York newspapers, including the New York Times, calling for the death penalty for a group of five Black and Latino teenage boys known as the "the Central Park Five," later judged wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a woman attacked while jogging in Central Park.
This is the full-page advertisement Donald Trump took out calling for the execution of the Central Park Five.
They were later exonerated by DNA evidence, although President Trump maintains that they are guilty.pic.twitter.com/vspZemnW93
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix)February 10, 2018
Fear as a political force
Using fear, particularly tapping into racist fears, as a political weapon is not an idea Trump originated. Politicians have always played to it.
During the riots of 1968, Richard Nixon emphasized the need for "law and order." Ronald Regan in 1976 played into American's racist view of African Americans by coining the phrase "welfare queen," who he said "used eighty names, thirty addresses, fifteen telephone numbers, to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans' benefits for four non-existent deceased veterans husbands, as well as welfare." In 1988, that same fear of crime and racist attitudes produced George H.W. Bush's infamous "Willie Horton" ad.
Trump followed that playbook closely in his 2016 election, and surveys showed that his supporters were more concerned than most becoming victims of crime.
According to asurveydone by the Public Religion Research Institute done that year, three-fourths of Trump supporters feared being victims of crime, versus 63 percent overall.
