Fear is a weapon that is 10 times as deadly as a sword. It has given men the power to do both horrible and wonderful things. It was fear of English interference that led men like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to band together and try to make a new America, free of tyranny. A little fear is for the most part harmless; fear of failure keeps us all productive, and fear of death keeps us all from being reckless. But fear on a large scale wielded by men with harmful intentions is catastrophic.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that there will always be men who will rise to power on the pretense of doing what’s right and just. It’s men like this who in seeking out power usually do not deserve it in the first place. One such man was Adolf Hitler who rose to power in Germany in the 1930’s. He claimed that under his leadership Germany would return to it’s original glory, and prosper once more. But to accomplish what he set out to do he had to blame the countries failings on something and then irradiate that source. So instead of blaming his countries failings on the true sources: corrupt government, a national deficit, and lingering war debts from WW1 and seeking to fix those, he instead targeted a race of people unable to defend themselves. It was easier for Adolf to blame the Jews, who he personally despised for many years than to fix the real problem with his country, which ironically enough was men like him in power. Directing the people’s fear of national turmoil toward the Jews gave Hitler the resources he needed to eradicate them. Because like all humans know sometimes it is easier to blame someone else for your problems than it is to blame yourself.
Adolf Hitler killed thousands of innocent men, woman, and children, all in the name of national pride. And he started out small, giving them identification tags, moving them from their homes, ostracizing them from society, and destroying their places of worship. He ordered all of those deaths because he was doing what he thought was best to make his country great again. But what nation can truly ever take pride in the death of half of its population?
What scares people today about Donald Trump running for president isn’t just that they are afraid of another Holocaust, because it’s much simpler than that. People are afraid of what men like Donald Trump represent because we have seen what happens when those kind of men take control of a nation. Like Adolf Hitler before him, Donald Trump has placed our nation's troubles on the backs of innocent Muslims/immigrants whom he has always harbored ill will towards. He is using Americans fear of terrorism as a tool to get him elected to power so that he can fix “what’s wrong with this country”. He wants to start out small, by giving Muslims identifications badges, building a wall, exporting immigrants, and ostracizing people. History is repeating itself, and so many Americans are too afraid to do what is right because it’s easier for them to just hand the reigns of this country over to a bully. Nearly 90 years ago people just like you and me made a choice to do what was easy instead of what was right. Let's not allow the United States of America to forget the words we forged this great nation under: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Let's chose to be better than those who came before us, by not allowing Donald Trump to harness our fear into a weapon to use against our own people.
