Freedom From Fear

Today at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, barring some kind of unanticipated disaster, Donald J. Trump will take the oath of office for his second term as president of the United States of America. That sentence no doubt strikes fear in the hearts of some of you, while for others it is a welcome relief. After taking the oath, President Trump will give a speech laying out his goals for the coming four years. He will no doubt pledge to provide many benefits to Americans. He may even say a good deal about freedom, as all American presidents are wont to do.

Whether or not the incoming president will be a protector of Americans’ freedoms is a subject of hot debate. Every presidential candidate, whether Democratic or Republican, declares their love for freedom, but in practice we find a wide range of interpretations of that word. This much I know: whatever freedoms President Trump may promise you in today’s speech, there is one he can never deliver. I say this not because he is an unusually bad politician, but because neither he nor his opponents currently have much interest in delivering the type of freedom to which I refer.

It was first described by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his State of the Union Address on January 6, 1941, now often called the “Four Freedoms Address.” At that time, World War II was well underway, and while the United States had not officially entered the conflict, it was actively supporting the British as they endured The Blitz. Roosevelt saw how the war pitted the tyrannical power of Nazi Germany against its more democratic neighbors. Thus, the struggle was as much ideological as physical.

Roosevelt unveiled his vision for a world in which four essential freedoms would be guaranteed to all human beings: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

These four freedoms were often featured in U.S. government efforts to rally support for the war effort — or as the kids call it, propaganda. They were memorably featured in a series of illustrations by Norman Rockwell. (The one for freedom of speech is currently enjoying a second viral moment as it is used in countless internet memes.) They were eventually included in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Looking back on them now, the first and second freedoms — those of speech and religion — are hardly surprising. These are rights guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Unites States Constitution. But the promise of freedom from want is more interesting. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution are American citizens guaranteed personal economic security. That Roosevelt included it is likely a testament to his efforts over the previous eight years to bring Americans out of the Great Depression and establish a social safety net through the New Deal.

The fourth freedom is most surprising of all. Freedom from fear?! How can a politician hope to confront such an abstract concept?

The answer comes partly in how Roosevelt defines freedom from fear. He says it means “a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor.” This helps us to understand the concept, but hardly makes the goal more achievable.

Take it from someone who did a degree in the nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons: we will never achieve such a reduction in armaments. More to the point, it seems particularly rich for Roosevelt to complain about tyrants who “seek to create with the crash of a bomb,” only to later greenlight the creation of the most destructive bomb in human history.

The Second World War brought an end to the threat of German and Japanese military aggression, but even before the surrender documents were signed, the United States and the Soviet Union had entered the Cold War. Americans have never known a time since Roosevelt’s speech when they did not fear, on some level, the use of weapons against them by foreign actors. Even the 1990s contained the threat of terrorism that culminated in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Furthermore, no human being at any point in history has been completely free from the fear of violent attack. Even before the creation of metal implements, humans had fists they could use. Cain slew Abel without the benefit of a gun. For this reason, it has been an awfully long time since an American politician of either party promoted substantial disarmament of the type Roosevelt seems to suggest. The strategy of mutually assured destruction is the preferred one for most politicians in nuclear armed states.

But what if we were to go a step further than Roosevelt? Human beings fear many things besides a military attack by a foreign power. We fear economic hardship (hence the third freedom), changes to our way of life, and our own mortality. We fear what we cannot understand, what makes us uncomfortable, and what goes against our ingrained nature. We fear that which would take from us what we are unwilling to surrender.

Here we arrive at my true critique of today’s American politicians in both parties — a critique that could equally apply to many countries in the Western world. Our politicians have no interest in freeing us from fear. In fact, they believe it would go directly against their self-interest.

Back in 2008, U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama ran on a single word slogan: “Hope.” Yet, even he warned us of many dangers. Today, the situation is far worse. Both Democrats and Republicans have long since realized that the easiest way to earn Americans’ votes is not by demonstrating the necessary competence or strength of character for the offices they seek, nor by putting forth detailed and deliverable policy proposals, but by convincing voters of the existential threat posed if their opponent should win.

Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Americans were bombarded with messages of impending doom. We heard about dangerous criminals pouring across our southern border unchecked, children having their genitals mutilated, women coming within an inch of death as their doctors debated the legality of removing their dead or dying fetus, ballot stuffing and voting machine hacking, Catholic hospitals being threatened with closure, gay teens falling into despair and committing suicide, et cetera, et cetera.

The words “fascist,” “dictator,” and “Communist” were frequently tossed about. Many warned that if Americans did not vote the right way in this election, they would never be able to vote again. More than anything, the Trump and Biden/Harris campaigns both assured Americans that a victory for the other side would be a disaster of unparalleled proportions in U.S. history.

We can debate how valid any of these fears are, but what cannot be denied is the way both parties appealed to them. As the candidates suffered from poor likeability ratings in public surveys, it was clear that the way to win was to make the other side seem scarier. As newspaper headline writers have long known, people pay more attention to something scary than something heartwarming.

The best way to get people to the polls is not by convincing them your complicated policy ideas will work (Who has time to read them?), nor by convincing them you could have a beer together (Who wants to have a beer with a politician?), but by convincing them that a victory for the other side would mean the end of the America they love.

Under such conditions, it is unsurprising that American politicians are not quick to defend our freedom from fear. They know that if we no longer believe America is facing an existential threat, we will be more willing to give a hearing to the other side. And if we do that, we might end up voting for the other side. It is therefore in the interest of our politicians to maintain a baseline level of fear at all times.

If I was seeking to be charitable to our politicians, I could say that it is not their simple, cynical desire to hold onto power that motivates this, but their awareness that no matter how hard they try, they will not be able to deliver freedom from fear to the American people. As I have written elsewhere, fear is the natural state of all living things. We fear because 1) we are mortal and 2) people and circumstances can lie to us. Short of eliminating those two things, no politician can deliver the freedom Roosevelt envisioned.

Thus, it was inevitable that at least some of us would reach this Inauguration Day with a knot in our gut. For all of us, in ways great and small, have a permanent knot, perhaps not in our gut, but in our spirit. The only hope of relief we have is in a power greater than any president of the United States.

We often hear people talk about hope and love being stronger than fear, and they are on to something. For as the Christian Scriptures tell us, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love” (1 John 4:18).

My initial reaction to that verse is to say, “I love my son, but I also fear for him. My husband loves me, but I still experience fear.” On and on I could go, describing how love and fear coexist here on earth. But the key point made by St. John is that we are “not perfected in love.” If we knew the perfect love of God perfectly, according to St. John, we would no longer be afraid. Unfortunately, we cannot experience such perfection in this life.

Nevertheless, I take comfort from the words of Scripture, for if God loves me unconditionally, then it is true that I need not fear punishment. Death will not overcome me, nor will lies. I am ultimately, eternally safe. No politician, however awful, can threaten what is most important to me. I no longer face any truly existential threat.

The only one who can provide freedom from fear is the one who defeated fear in his own flesh, suffering and dying on our behalf. He went into the very depths of hell — the lowest abyss of fear — and rose again victorious. Only such a person could grant us relief. Only one with power superior to death and evil could provide Roosevelt’s fourth freedom, either narrowly or broadly considered.

Let this thought cheer you upon Inauguration Day: Freedom from fear is available to you. True, lasting peace is yours without cost or labor. That is a message far greater than anything you will hear from Washington, D.C. today or any other day.