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One of the fables most of us learned as children was about the “Boy Who Cried Wolf.” As originally told by Aesop, a shepherd boy would routinely raise a cry that a wolf was about. Since that endangered the town flock — a major economic asset — the citizens would come running. They found the shepherd boy just playing a prank.
Until one day he wasn’t. He sounded the alarm that a wolf had appeared. Yet, even though it was finally true, he had burned his credibility with the village. No one came. The sheep were eaten.
It is also a lesson that applies equally to politics.
Some Democrats argue that democracy itself is at risk in the upcoming presidential election. In their mind, Donald Trump is an existential threat to the United States. His return to the White House would leave us somewhere between “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Hunger Games.”
Are they right? Or are they just falsely crying wolf?
Earlier cries of “wolf” make it hard to answer the question. Famously, then-Vice President Joe Biden made a shocking accusation during the 2012 presidential campaign. He claimed Republicans wanted to “put ya’ll back in chains” when speaking to a group of Black Americans.
In 2005, Kanye West took to the stage at a fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Katrina to declare “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” And during Trump’s 2016 campaign, the term “dystopian” was thrown about continually by left-leaning commentators.
Now, I’m in the majority of Americans who don’t want either Trump or Biden to be president. But I’m also of a similar mind to U.S. Rep. Jared Golden: Even if Trump wins this November, it does not herald the end of days. Those claims are just more cries of “wolf.”
The retort will likely be that the fear is based on Trump’s campaign speeches. Yet his critics also accuse him of lying and perpetuating falsehoods. So how do they credit Trump’s promises that scare them as gospel truth while still branding him a loquacious liar?
Solving this mess begins with dialing back the hyperbole and ending the cries of “wolf.” Both Trump and Biden are problematic candidates. Neither represents the end of the world, whichever wins.
Democrats’ earlier attacks describing the milquetoast Mitt Romney as some sort of horned monster helped set the stage for this current predicament. One of the most non-objectionable, white bread, boring Republicans in history was mercilessly smeared, accused of wanting to put Black people in chains, among other things. America would be destroyed if it elected Romney.
Wolf, wolf, wolf.
Some Republicans aren’t much better. There are plenty of problems with Biden’s policy objectives, but America will endure them if it must. Fears that he will destroy the country are similar cries of “wolf.”
Instead, we should look back to the example of John McCain. When a debate audience member began to say Barack Obama was an Arab immigrant ineligible for the presidency, McCain stepped in, responding: “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
Trump is probably not capable of making such a magnanimous statement. Nor is Biden, given his “put y’all in chains” quip back when he still was in full control of his facilities. So it becomes incumbent on all of us as citizens to model the way forward.
So let’s stop with all the dystopian, doomsday predictions about the imminent death of democracy. Save your voice for when a wolf truly is amongst the flock.