1) One of the most effective ways to manipulate people is fear. Make people afraid enough, and you can get them to do just about anything.
2) I would venture to say FEAR is the currency local and world politics plays in. Even our own media.
3) Think about it. How do mass shootings get wall to wall coverage while mass shootings stopped by someone with a concealed carry permit never make national news? Fear.
4) Fear makes you pay attention to something which has nothing to do with you. Fear created the public pressure that caused one of the most conservative governors in the United States to pass a gun control law which won't solve anything.
5) Fear was used to great effect in the elections and even now about Trump's policies. Make black people afraid of the police: BLM. Make hispanics afraid of ICE, so they vote Dem. Make people afraid of tariffs and climate change and mass shooters and so much else.
6) Fear on the world politics stage: North Korea wants its neighbors AFRAID of a nuclear holocaust. They need the fear of millions dying in a war for their bargaining position. Russia needs people to fear its military, to be so afraid the west won't oppose its land grabs.
7) Fear has become so PERVASIVE, so OMNIPRESENT, people are afraid that in a moment Trump will become a literal dorito-faced Hitler, with death camps and everything, and top media and celebrity persons stoke that fear CONSTANTLY.
8) The fear, it infects the right as well. Fear of some mythical deep state leviathan waiting beneath the surface to swallow up the Trumptanic. Of special counsels gone rogue, of a blue wave to sweep away the GOP Congress.
9) Fear of Kelly keeping Trump imprisoned in his own White House, of former aides turning on him, of his appointees turning against him.
10) So how do you fight fear? Hope, bravado, and showing that you're not afraid. Taking away the sources of fear or proving the fear is based on nonsensical delusions, on shadow puppets from small paper figures.
11) Trump has been doing this THE ENTIRE TIME HE'S BEEN PRESIDENT.
12) The media wants you to be afraid that the THAAD system can't stop an icbm. They won't tell you of the multiple ways that Trump ordered day 1 with his 'nuclear readiness' order that included our DEFENSES, and those of our ALLIES.
13) Why do you think Trump was tweeting the Red Button tweet? Was it for North Korea to be threatened? Was it just for the media to lap up and cover endlessly? Or was he telling the US, "Hey, relax... we got this."
14) Has anyone been THAT afraid of an icbm strike from North Korea since then? Do you honestly think a parasite and starvation-ridden shitshow can put together a missile that can beat missile defenses no one outside the top bits of the US military and its allies even KNOW about?
15) How do we deal with DACA? Dem cries of ICE splitting families? putting the ball in their hands, saying, "Give us border security AND DACA," and watching Dems completely flounder and show to the hispanic populace they aren't nearly as afraid of ICE as they're making Dreamers.
16) Follow me on this thought experiment: If FEAR is the capital that has been running US and World politics, how powerful and effective would a President that is working to DISMANTLE the economy of fear be?
17) ISIS suddenly are Losers who've been nearly swept from Syria. Russia's feared semi-legal army in Syria has been utterly devastated by US air power and artillery alone. We launched missiles at a Syrian airbase and DIDNT cause WW3.
18) The economy hasn't collapsed overnight. Jobs have been coming back. Tariffs aren't causing a trade war. All threats, all the stoked fears, just shadow puppets on the wall.
19) What if I were to tell you that the best way to defeat Fear was Hope, and the Will to fight through the Fear to get to the Hope that it was hiding?
20) Stop letting the media frighten you. Stop letting pundits and reporters scare you into paying attention to them so they can get impressions and pageviews.
21) Want to know how @ThomasWictor does what he does? He's lost virtually all his fear. Seriously, read what he says, that old cranky bastard isn't actually afraid of anything. Because of that, he can see past the deceptive influence of Fear and see the truth below the surface.
22) Me? I've got the empty bottle of DGAF that I've swallowed, dulls the fear response for long enough to read between the lines. Means that I can tell @CNN to SUCK IT. I KNOW YOU BASTARDS THINK YOU KNOW ME, BUT YOU DON'T YOU FAKE NEWS FUCKS.
23) Sorry, unrelated tangent. Anyways; stop being afraid. Stop being worried. Stop being concerned. Fear is the mind killer and all that jazz. /end
