Democrats are afraid of a dictator and losing rights. Republicans are afraid of communism, immigrants and vaccines. What’s keeping New Hampshire voters up late at night?
The other side winning.
Val Touba of Bedford was out last Wednesday in Manchester at the crossroads of Granite and Commercial streets. He and his raucous band of fellow supporters of former President Donald Trump insist they are fighting for the last vestige of the country they love.
A country they feel like they love more than Democrats, the Republicans said.
“The last four years have been hell under Biden,” Touba said last week. “He’s done everything wrong, from domestic policy to foreign policy, and we definitely need to turn the page.”
The previous Wednesday, Faith Scales of Nashua attended a rally at the Lawrence Barn in Hollis for Maggie Goodlander, the Democrat running for the U.S. House in the 2nd Congressional District.
For Scales, the stakes of this election are just as high.
“I can’t imagine waking up with D.T. in office. I don’t even want to say his name,” Scales said. “I don’t feel safe under his regime, and that’s what it is, a regime. He doesn’t do what’s best for the people, he does what’s best for him. He incited a mob to attack the Capitol. A man who can incite violence, what else will he do?”
Republicans are violent and don’t have a worldview based in reality, several Democratic voters said.
This contrast is fueling both sides’ motivation and anxiety and isn’t likely going to end with this general election, both groups of voters said.
Worst-case scenarios
John Brent of Manchester was asked what’s his biggest fear of Vice President Kamala Harris winning the presidency.
“World War III. Communism. Nuclear war. All of the above. Anything you can imagine and worse,” Brent said. “The country is so divided and the propaganda is so deep that it’s scary.”
His top issues?
“Election integrity, corruption in government, deep state, and lifelong politicians who are just there for the money. The establishment,” Brent said.
On the other side, Joseph Gallagher of Amherst said he’s cautiously optimistic that Harris will win. If she doesn’t, he has many fears.
“First of all, the rounding up of people who disagree with you isn’t democratic,” Gallagher said. “That worries me a lot. And I think immigration is overstated. I think if (Trump) chased all the immigrants out, we wouldn’t be going to restaurants, we wouldn’t be going to the supermarket anymore.”
Although several towns across the state are plastered with Trump signs which might intimidate Democrats, Gallagher said the folks in his town aren’t that shy about their support for Harris.
“I think a lot of the threats of violence has an impact on that. But go through Amherst, there’s a ton of Harris-Walz signs. There’s a lot of Trump signs, but a lot of Harris-Walz signs.”
Monica Holm of Hudson railed against the “fake news” and championed Trump’s plan to deport immigrants, even those who are here legally. But she said one of the things she fears most is vaccines.
“The COVID vaccine and all those shots need to be stopped immediately,” she said. “And you go into any grocery store, you get 10% off your groceries if you get the flu shot. It’s criminal. Our childhood vaccines are up to 79 or even further up into the hundreds, and we’re hurting our children.”
She said she also hopes Trump shuts down the news media for lying to the public.
Getting involved
Sanjeev Manohar, a Nashua Democrat running for state representative and chemical engineering professor at UMass Lowell, is running for office for the first time. An immigrant from India, he was challenged by his daughter to do something to prevent their worst fears from coming true.
“I was just sitting and watching TV and I was complaining. My daughter said, ‘Dad, stop whining. Why don’t you do something about it?’“
Manohar said, “Democracy itself is like a very, very beautiful flower. It’s not hard, you have to nurture it, you have to protect it.”
Moving forward together
Rob Spencer of Concord said he fears Trump will become a dictator, but he offered a way to diffuse the situation and quell fears on both sides. He said it’s time for Democrats and Republicans to stop projecting all these fears on each other. To stop distrusting their neighbors so much.
“The first step is to spend time with people who have different views. The next step is to try to understand them. To listen. To ask open-ended questions to really understand what brings them to where they are, which is very different from where I am,” Spencer said.
He said we need to accept each other for who we are.
“It’s a progress from time, attention, understanding, appreciation, and then, ideally, and this is not always possible, reach a place of mutual connection,” Spencer said. “Then if you have a mutual connection, if they see something in me and I see something in them, then we can actually come to a place of common or deeper understanding. “
Then maybe he and others can overcome their fears and sleep peacefully again, he said.
