Photograph Source: Xuthoria – CC BY-SA 4.0

Donald Trump is provoking fear in the United States. His declarations and actions are part of a deliberate strategy of creating enough fear to have established a reign of terror. Trump is being compared with Vladimir Putin in Russia – see M. Gessen in the New York Times (This Is the Feeling of Losing a Country. I Know It Well) – and Adolf Hitler in Germany in the 1930s – see Aziz Huq in the The Atlantic (America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State). “Invading hordes” are not causing fear in the United States, the president and his followers are. The United States is engulfed in an avalanche of fear.

There are numerous examples of Trump’s fear mongering; “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said just after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.  “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we are seeing in the country today, and it must stop right now,” Trump declared.  “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”

Susan Glasser asked; “Did Trump Just Declare War on the American Left?” in The New Yorker. Look at what Trump said and what he said he would do. He held “the radical left” responsible for Charlie Kirk’s assassination as well as “terrorism” in the country. Beyond threatening, “to beat the hell out of them,” he added, “we’re going to get that problem solved.”

How would “that problem” be solved? “The Department of Justice is also investigating networks of radical left maniacs who fund…fuel and perpetuate political violence and we think we know who many of them are,” Trump said at the Kirk memorial service, “But law enforcement can only be the beginning of our response to Charlie’s murder.”

Continual fear is part of Trump’s response to Kirk’s murder. But what exactly is the fear Trump keeps creating? Fear, after all, is subjective; one person’s fear is not another’s. Loyal MAGA believers are not fearful of Trump. A possible way to describe fear as objectively as possible is to use the 1951 Refugee Convention. To be officially recognized a refugee, asylum seekers must fulfil the criteria of proving a “well-founded fear of being persecuted.” There are no quantitative measurements for a “well-founded fear of being persecuted” however, neither for the person seeking refugee status nor for the decision-maker considering the determination.

But the Refugee Convention does present possible means of determining if an asylum-seeker has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted.”  First, where does the fear come from? According to the Convention, a “well-founded fear of being persecuted” can be for “reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Furthermore, Article 1A(2) of the Convention, says fear entails a “forward-looking expectation of risk.” And, to prove that risk, the standard of a “reasonable possibility or chance” is widely accepted in State practice.

Are there a “forward-looking expectation[s] of risk” of persecution in the United States today for members of a particular social group or for expressing a public opinion? Is  there a “reasonable possibility or chance” to be persecuted? Is there reason for people to be afraid?

Yes there is. There is fear among migrants, green card holders and even U.S. citizens of being arrested by ICE officers and deported. There is fear at universities, especially elite ones like Harvard, of losing control over their academic freedom as well as millions of dollars in government grants. There is fear at foundations like Ford and Open Society of losing their tax-free status. There is fear among political commentators and late night television hosts of losing freedom of speech following Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension. There is fear among journalists not working for media outlets such as Fox News of expressing their opinions. There is fear among academics, at museums, at cultural centers, and so on. Trump has created fear for any person or group he considers his opposition.

As for evidence of a “forward-looking expectation of risk,” just ask the more than 199,000 federal workers who have left their jobs or have been forced out by the Trump administration since January. Or career prosecutors in the Department of Justice as well as law enforcement veterans at the F.B.I. Or people like George Moose and his colleagues who were physically thrown out of the U.S. Institute of Peace by police officers. Even John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, had his house searched by F.B.I. agents as a warning to those who publicly criticize the president.

It’s not just Trump who is creating fear. His vassals are submissive instruments in his reign of terror. “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network and make America safe again for the American people,” threatened Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff, during the memorial Charlie Kirk podcast hosted by J.D. Vance.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr already warned in July; “Once President Trump has exposed these media gatekeepers and smashed this facade, there’s a lot of consequences,” he said. “I think the consequences of that aren’t quite finished,” he added, heightening a “forward-looking expectation of risk” well before the Jimmy Kimmel incident.

Trump’s recent Truth Social post to Attorney-General Pam Bondi to prosecute his rivals – “We can’t delay any longer” – follows a similar pattern of “forward-looking expectation of risk.”

The United States has witnessed periods of politically created societal fear before. The mid-1950s McCarthy era was a hysterical moment of anti-Communism with the House Un-American Activities Committee and loyalty oaths pledging allegiance. But the McCarthy period should not be considered a full reign of terror since Joe McCarthy was never president of the United States.

I keep having a recurring image of a physical fear I watched on a video. Years ago, the great American skier Buddy Werner was hired to film a fashion movie on a Swiss slope. With cameras rolling as he gracefully descended the mountain, Werner suddenly stops and turns to look up the hill, obviously hearing a threatening noise. (The video has no sound.) Werner quickly pivots downhill into a tuck position to try to outrace the oncoming avalanche. The split second between Werner’s looking backward and turning downhill must have been one of agonizing fear. That image stays with me.

Have we heard the Trumpian avalanche? Are we living through Trump’s avalanche of terror with no way of avoiding being buried like Buddy Werner?

The French Reign of Terror (1793-1794) had a goal to “crush the enemies” of the French Revolution. “Let’s make terror the order of the day!” was proposed by someone in the French National Convention. Robespierre, the leader of the terror, described terror; “Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie” (homeland).  The French Reign of Terror ended when Robespierre was arrested and executed. It was relatively short lived, like the McCarthy era.

Donald Trump is creating fear from sea to shining sea and beyond. Trump 2.0 is a reign of terror. Hopefully, it will also be short lived.

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