WASHINGTON � A presidential election pits one nominee against another, one agenda and ideology against another. But to an extraordinary degree, the 2020 election is being framed as a choice between what you should fear the most.
Mob rule, socialism and weakness, or an unstable and incompetent bully who cozies up to dictators?
Democrats spent their convention last week warning that America faces four more years of chaos under Donald Trump, widespread death through incompetent handling of a pandemic, environmental degradation, unchecked gun violence, an end to the social safety net, a slide into authoritarianism and a destabilizing retreat from leadership on the world stage.
This week, Republicans are painting a portrait of a Joe Biden-led dystopia of looting and rioting unchecked in the cities, suburbs overrun and destroyed by poor people, guns confiscated, immigrants pouring across the border to steal jobs and commit crimes, police budgets slashed, religion quashed, prosperity and job growth choked by taxes and regulation, abortion legal until the moment of birth, and an America transformed into a Venezuela-style socialist failure.
Pick your poison.
Republicans have paired their warnings with reassurance of sorts _ that with Trump in power, the worst can be averted.
Trump is the "the bodyguard of Western civilization," said Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, a conservative group, kicking off the convention.
Implicit in that reassurance, though, was one of the darkest themes Republicans are pushing this week: that America, and even western civilization, are at risk if Biden wins.
But with Trump already in power, Democrats don't need to stretch the imagination quite so much, said Michael Steele, a former national Republican Party chair who on Monday joined the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans dedicated to defeating Trump.
"The advantage the Democrats have in their description of how difficult times are is that we're actually living through them. You've got a flattened economy. You've got COVID-19 and civil unrest," Steele said Tuesday on a call hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Still, scare tactics do rev up the base.
"It has dramatic effect, what you hear about the encroachment of socialism and the obvious go-to _they'll take away all your guns et cetera, which is such a laughable thing to say, given that there are more guns in American households than there are people. I can't imagine what that roundup process would look like.
"But no one's thinking it all the way through. It's just enough to say the hot button line," he said.
Such is the power of a scare tactic.
Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, warned that Biden would eradicate freedom of thought, expression and religion.
"It's almost like this election is shaping up to be church, work and school versus rioting, looting, and vandalism," he said. "Anarchists have been flooding our streets and Democrat mayors are ordering the police to stand down. Small businesses across America, many of them minority owned, are being torched by mobs."
His girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host who leads the Trump campaign's fundraising, warned that Democrats "want to destroy this country."
"Biden, Harris and their socialist comrades will fundamentally change this nation," she warned. "They will defund, dismantle and destroy America's law enforcement.... Rioters must not be allowed to destroy our cities. Human, sex, drug traffickers should not be allowed to cross our border....They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think, and believe, so they can control how you live!"
In one of the darkest segments of the convention's first night, Mark and Patty McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who brandished guns as a march for racial justice passed their home in June � and who now face felony weapons charges � played on suburban fears. Critics called a barely veiled appeal to racial bias.
Patty insisted that Democrats "are not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether" through "forced rezoning" that will "bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods."
"No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats' America," she said.
The range of fearful things the Republicans focus on is broad.
Personal safety is a staple.
"I truly believe the safety of our kids depends on whether this man is reelected," said Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was killed in the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., combined fears of cancel culture, gun control, COVID-19 public health measures, gang violence, immigration and demands for police reform into one anxiety-provoking riff.
"The woke-topians will disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door, and the police aren't coming when you call," said he said. "Cops killed. Children shot."
On Tuesday night, a granddaughter of the late evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, Cissie Graham Lynch, warned that "the Biden-Harris vision for America leaves no room for people of faith. Whether you're a baker, a florist, or a football coach, they will force the choice between being obedient to God, or to Caesar."
Fearmongering is a time-honored tradition in politics.
Among the most famous examples: the "Daisy Girl" ad, aimed at tarring GOP nominee Barry Goldwater as a madman capable of starting a nuclear war. Aired just once by Lyndon Johnson's campaign on Sept. 7, 1964, the one-minute spot showed a 3-year-old girl plucking daisy petals, dissolving into a countdown and a mushroom cloud.
Social scientists have long recognized that playing on voters' fears generally works better for conservatives. For liberals, an embrace of tolerance and inclusiveness works against any effort to strike fear.
"There's a threat. We need to be vigilant. We need to stamp it out, we need to be aggressive," said John Jost, a New York University social psychologist who has studied the role that fear plays as a motivator in politics. "There's a better resonance between the conservative ideology and the psychology of reacting to threat and fear."
The Trump agenda, and the convention themes, reflect that.
"Close the borders, build the wall, keep them out, throw people in jail. The law and order mentality, the us versus them mentality," Jost said. "Recognize the dangers of this world and respond aggressively. That's a very good message" to motivate conservatives.
With the fortnight of conventions underway, the two sides have traded accusations about fabrication and distortion.
Biden's deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield took issue with the GOP's use of footage showing clashes between protesters and police from recent months.
"Donald Trump likes to make this argument about what might look like in Joe Biden's America by literally using footage from Donald Trump's America," she said.
GOP national chair Ronna McDaniel, at the opening session in Charlotte, said of the Democrats' convention: "It was a masterpiece of fiction about President Trump's record."
Michelle Obama, the former first lady, accused Trump of "emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists." A parade of speakers cited his deployment of federal forces to quell protests with tear gas, and accused him of failing to protect the public from a pandemic, economic collapse and climate change.
"We have a president who is not only incapable of addressing these crises but is leading us down the path of authoritarianism," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
In Charlotte, Trump offered a preview of this week's GOP onslaught.
"They want no guns. They want no oil and gas. No God," he asserted. "They will take your guns away, as sure as you're sitting there."
None of that reflects Biden's actual positions.
Trump also asserted that Democrats are trying to use the pandemic as a pretext to expand mail-in ballot, in order to allow voter fraud on a mass scale.
"They're trying to steal the election," he said, without evidence.
And if Biden gets to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy, he warned, "Your American Dream will be dead."
Steele tied Trump's barrage to a need to redirect anger away from the 180,000 COVID deaths since March, and the widespread economic upheaval.
"He's trying to defend against this idea of this being a referendum on his term, as opposed to a choice between making America great again and the dystopian tragedies of socialism," he said.
