The further along we go with the weirdness (and not the fun kind) our nation has become, the more I’m convinced that it mostly comes down to the f-word: Fear.

There’s fear of the other in overdrive, as evidenced by the reaction on the right to Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde’s homily at the prayer service at Washington National Cathedral for Donald Trump’s inauguration. Georgia U.S. Rep. Mike Collins decided that Budde should be added to the deportation list, and there were those who questioned her authority to even speak because of her gender. And the threats, of course.

“I’ve had people wish me dead. I’m not sure they’ve threatened to kill me, but they seemed to be pleased if I met my eternal destiny sooner rather than later,” Budde told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last Wednesday.

You would almost think that the bishop told the president that he needed to just allow all those transgender surgeries in schools and let immigrants continue eating household pets in Ohio.

Oops, there’s another f-word: Fact. Neither of those stories are true, but spreading them during the campaign sure amped up the fear factor.

I mean, how dare Budde say such things as “unity is not partisan,” “I hope that we care, because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in our country threatens to destroy us,” and “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

Heck, I’ve said similar things, though not as eloquently.

I know of entirely too many people who are scared now, and they span a wide array of cultures, religions, political affiliations and genders. I’d be lying if I said I weren’t scared, though at the moment my fear is more for those of my family and friends, especially the LGBTQ+ members, who are directly affected by the president’s promises and actions.

I’ve said it so many times, but it apparently must be said again: Fear is no way to live, but that’s what we’ve set ourselves up to do. We spread tales, often partially or wholly untrue, to make people afraid of a specific demographic, and people bite (of course, because too many don’t believe in fact-checking and think that if something sounds true to them or they want it to be true, it must be). Those people then make threats toward that demographic, so that that demographic is also living in fear. As they say, misery loves company, and there’s little more miserable than fear.

I’ve also said over and over that politics has infected far too much of our lives, making even things like children’s television a battleground. Politics that makes its bones on fear is especially dangerous. Thomas Henricks, Ph.D., in warning of the dangers of authoritarianism, wrote on Psychology Today in September, “Today, some of us find ourselves attracted to charismatic leaders, would-be strongmen who claim to have all the answers to our social ills. Commonly, those leaders trade in the currency of fear. Without them, or so they insist, society will collapse. Their followers will lose the levels of success they’ve worked hard to obtain. Outsiders will infiltrate every dimension of social living. Returning to older social patterns is surely the antidote to what ails us now.

“Fear … is a clearly negative emotion, a condition that feels bad to possess. For that reason, many convert this to anger, an emotion that restores agency, direction, and self-esteem. Anger becomes most effective when it is coupled with capability or power, the sense that one can achieve his or her ambitions. And that sense of capability is expanded dramatically when those ambitions are shared by millions of others.”

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum, author of “The Monarchy of Fear,” told PBS NewsHour in 2018, “What happens when fear gets into the works is, it’s like sort of a grain of sand that gets into the whole mechanism, and makes us spin off and target things that are not real. So we get frightened. And then we think, oh, the problem is really the immigrants. Or it’s on the left too. So the problem is really those elites, instead of thinking, well, what are the actual problems, and what can we do to fix them?”

And now I see more clearly that so much of the fear in politics is simply misdirection to keep us from paying attention. It’s much easier to take our rights away if we’re distracted by squirrels.

Fear is certainly a big part of what drives modern politics, but we can’t discount the part that respect, or the lack thereof, plays.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt when I first encounter them, and most of the time am rewarded with reasonableness. However, some people can’t help but be insulting to anyone who disagrees with them, calling them “raving lunatics,” “libtards,” “Rethuglicans” and worse.

As Budde told Maddow last week, “You can certainly disagree with me. You can disagree with what I’ve said or did. But could we, as Americans and fellow children of God, speak to one another with respect?”

Perhaps if we at least tried, some progress might be made toward healing our divide, and we’d stop spreading more tales to make us fear our fellow humans.

Speaking of spreading tales, a friend posted something the other day from Social Hypocrisy on Facebook (its page says, “We are here to find humor in social hypocrisy and share random misinterpreted thoughts.” … except apparently the right isn’t guilty of social hypocrisy 🤔). Here’s a segment of it:

Ahem. The first bit about Barack Obama should provoke lots of riotous laughter from those of us who have actually paid attention to what’s been happening over the last few decades. “Kept quiet”??? Really???? Does no one remember the origin of the “modern” Tea Party? What about all those mannequins of Obama hanged or burned in effigy, the countless falsehoods spread about the Obama family, the lying about just about every, single little thing done during the Obama years just because, the fits of pique over tan suits and mustard on hamburgers? (And of course, no one is allowed to say boo about the current president unless it’s positive; otherwise, you’re part of the radical left lying about him … yeah, I’m independent, and not lying.)

So much of the list of grievances is factually wrong/wholly lacking in context that it would take forever to list all the falsehoods/needed context. But let me drop a few things I remember.

I remember a lot of racist tropes all during the Obama administration, as well as allegations that Michelle was actually a man. I remember constant attacks on Obama and threats to impeach him, for everything from allowing people to use restrooms matching their gender identity to Benghazi. I also remember multiple assassination plots and threats that continued after he left office (remember Cesar Sayoc?)

During the first Trump administration, I remember a lot of whining, especially when the press called him and his administration out on blatant lies (like the most-attended inauguration in history, so easily disproved by photos, traffic reports, etc.). I remember a lot of unproved allegations tossed around about Obama, Nancy Pelosi and whoever else displeased Trump. I remember experts basically being told they were idiots, especially when the pandemic started, and more than a million people dying in the U.S., much of it because too many people believed in what they were told by non-experts and refused vaccination or even basic mitigation measures.

I recall a lot of time spent trying to gin up culture wars and blaming everyone but themselves when plans (like repealing the Affordable Care Act) blew up in their faces.

I also remember a president trying to be a bully to everyone but Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Viktor Orban, Xi Jinping and a few other dictators. And I definitely remember that anyone who didn’t hold his water was (and still is) insulted—generally with the same batch of a couple dozen mix-and match phrases that didn’t require much thought—and not allowed to fight back. And after he was out of office, he still kept his thumb and nose in Congress, squashing things just for the heck of it, or because he didn’t want Joe Biden to have a win (like on the immigration reform bill).

And it looks like he’s picked up right where he left off. I and a lot of other moderate independents, Republicans and Democrats have seen nothing to encourage us to relax, especially as the Republicans in the Senate seem inclined to go along with his Cabinet picks, even those who are grossly unqualified.

So what do we do? Keep fighting. That’s really the only thing I can think of. We have to outlast those who think that anyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with them and their hatred is a traitor.

We’re not traitors, and we love this country.

We’re not afraid of facts, so we’ll keep highlighting them. We believe that if you break the law, you should be held accountable.

We believe in science. We believe in math. We believe in the power of positive action. We believe love between consenting adults is love. We believe that stripping hard-won rights away is wrong. We believe in treating others as we wish to be treated, and that it is noble to care for the “least of these.”

And we believe that, if you really think that treating fellow humans as trash because they don’t believe as you do, you need a wake-up call, especially if you’re following the lead of billionaires who never seem to face consequences for their words and actions.