This election season I have been bombarded with ads pleading for donations and votes, with headlines like “It’s our last chance … ” or “Your support is desperately needed …” A surprising percentage use an unflattering image of the opponent rather than a smiling photo of the candidate. Today, fear of the “other side” is seen as a stronger motivation than support for a positive agenda.
Stoking fear on a particular issue (e.g., nuclear war in 1964, Black crime in 1988) has a long, successful history. But I see even more fear in our country today, and politicians use it to reach far beyond a single issue. The opponents’ images in today’s ads are an indictment (and incitement) against an entire swath of politicians and Americans. They fan the flames of dark, dystopian visions on both sides, even though they are as different as night and day, sun and moon, fire and ice.
Use of the term “dystopia” increased after “A Clockwork Orange” (1972) and “Blade Runner” (1982). Today, “dystopian fiction” and “dystopian movies” are common. The word was invented to symbolize the opposite of another, made-up literary term: Utopia is a 1536 satire which describes an imaginary island that is perfect in every way (no war, hunger, government, money, or social classes). In 1868, John Stuart Mill created “dystopia” as its opposite, a land in which all the dearest tenets and systems of our present world are in disorder and disarray.
Twitter writer Yasmin Abutaleb observed that current political strategies are “marked by dueling dystopias, as the parties vie to outdo each other in describing the hellscape that lies ahead if the other side wins.” (Is anyone surprised that many young people are disaffected and disengaged from our two-party system? Who wants to focus on a possible “hellscape” for their most productive and vibrant years?)
What dystopia do Republicans imagine when they see images of Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, or AOC and the Squad (six young, “radical” women representatives of color)? A country with “open borders” resulting in truly-American white Christians replaced by dark-skinned people, many demanding government assistance, others taking jobs from more deserving Americans. A socialist or communist America in which few people work or strive to improve, depending instead on “the government dole.” A “godless” America where Christianity is no longer dominant, LGBTQ people are fully accepted as citizens, where students learn from teachers and books that America has a disgraceful history, and must apologize and atone for its many sins. An America so “woke” that people are “cancelled” — their jobs and community standing taken away — for thinking or speaking the wrong thoughts.
For Democrats, photos of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, DeSantis, et al., conjure images of a country with closed borders, fearful of the waves of immigrants that have successively and successfully built our country. Radical Christians dictate school curriculums, library holdings, gender identification, and reproductive and health decisions. Guns are everywhere and used frequently by domestic terrorists, and in mistaken and accurate instances of self-defense. Corporations and the upper 1% control tax and business policy, intent on widening the gap between the rich and middle- and lower-income classes. Government is democratic when it’s convenient, but can be circumvented, by force if necessary, when voting results don’t favor those already in power.
Both are harsh and extreme, but possible, scenarios if the fringe on either side gains power. Is there anything that distinguishes them, making one more palatable than the other?
I believe that the world controlled by the radical right is far more dangerous because it accepts the possibility of overthrowing or gutting a democratic system of government that has been a flawed, but wondrous and successful experiment for nearly 250 years. The proposals of the far left and far right can be debated and approved or disapproved within our constitutional framework, as the political pendulum swings back and forth. But the idea that our system could or should be overthrown by force lays the groundwork for a dystopia that brings violence, chaos, and iron-fisted control by a small group that have no duty or allegiance to our constitution.
Huge spikes in references to a modern “civil war” followed the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid and Biden calling extreme MAGA supporters “semi-fascists,” one example of a fringe belief elbowing its way into mainstream conversations. It is a possibility accepted by many on the far right, and one I hope is merely a dystopian nightmare that disappears in the sunlight.
Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. He welcomes comments at awoods2846@gmail.com.