Leadership means inspiring us to manage through our fears. Demagoguery means exploiting our fears for political gain. There is a crucial difference.
“Any who act as if freedom’s defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.” – Eisenhower
Between those two paragraphs Gore asks a series of questions (p25).
Are the dangers we now face so much greater than those that led Franklin Delano Roosevelt to famously remind us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?
Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march – when our fathers fought and won a world war on two fronts simultaneously?
Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with thousands of missles poised to annihilate our country at a moment’s notice?
Then, in case we’re not getting the point (p26):
Clearly, the current administration has misused fear to manipulate the political process.
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