Tim Steller's column: The other side fears this election's outcome, too

People like me feel we have a lot to fear in the coming presidential election.

Donald Trump, we've noticed, has become more fascistic in his rhetoric , talking about the "enemy from within," suggesting the military might be used against domestic enemies. That well could be us.

And the feeling is much worse if you have undocumented loved ones, those people he's said are " poisoning the blood of our country. " It feels like the stage is set for something awful if he wins.

All this I believe to be true. I'm not a registered Democrat, but when it comes to the question of Trump, I might as well be. And yet I know that many people on the other side of this election feel similarly about Kamala Harris. They see the possible election of Harris as an existential threat to the country, too.

"Everything you're afraid of that might happen to you has already been done to Republicans," former Republican candidate for Congress Kathleen Winn told me Friday.

She cited the criminal charges against Trump, the two assassination attempts, and the disbarment of Republican lawyers who helped the party's legal efforts after the 2020 election.

Trump has frequently warned that the country will be destroyed if Harris is elected.

"You won't have a country anymore," he said at a rally in Las Vegas . "You're pretty close to not having one. You better hope I get elected."

Now, I'm not here to both-sides this issue. It's possible for both sides to think that the other represents an existential threat to the country, and for only one to be right.

And I think that Trump raises supporters' fears largely in an effort to win their support by presenting himself as their protector from the threat he conjures. I don't really buy his claims in a country with a lot of problems but equal amounts of promise.

But after speaking with Pima County GOP Chair Dave Smith and Winn about the claims of existential threats, I at least see their worries more clearly and have a little more hope for reconciliation after the election.

An existential threat?

I met with Smith at Crave Coffee Bar on East Broadway, where I asked him whether he agrees that a Harris presidency poses an existential threat.

"They're talking about stacking the court," he said, referring to proposals to impose term limits on or add seats to the U.S. Supreme Court. "They're introducing two new states (Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico) to give them the majority in the Senate. That would be just unassailable."

"Whether you study Ayn Rand or Hannah Arendt, you have to be concerned about anybody who gets absolute power and can limit the individual freedoms of others."

Smith didn't call Harris a Marxist or Communist, but many other Republicans have in explaining their fear for the country. I asked if he believes she is one of those things.

"She comes from the progressive side of the shop," he said. "The question is, where is the limit on that progressivism?"

"I guess you could divide this argument by the dictatorial control of an individual, which is what they say about Trump, versus the bureaucratic state, or totalitarian bureaucracy, which is what Republicans are talking about."

Smith and Winn both fear the growth of a strangling administrative state under Harris, choking off individual freedoms.

"That doesn't sound like a very close approximation of communism," I noted.

Smith responded, "Goldwater in 1960 wrote, in The Conscience of a Conservative that the new communist term would be welfare, that they would gain control of our society through compassionate acts and compassionate programs like welfare, which would eventually intercede into the individuals' lives and control them."

'The country is being destroyed'

Perhaps the most emotionally potent arguments of the threat posed by a Harris administration center on immigration.

"I think the country is being destroyed right now," said Winn, who hosts a daily public-affairs radio show on KVOI, 1030 AM. "We have millions of people in the country who are not here legally."

"We don't have operational control of our border," she added. "Don't get me wrong — Donald Trump didn't have a utopia, but he had a commitment."

Smith said two separate factors, when brought together, raise the issue of an existential threat caused by foreign migration. One is the existence of millions of people who came in between ports of entry; the other is the lack of voter ID requirements in some jurisdictions.

"The sovereignty of my nation is challenged, and yet those people are being given a franchise without any question," he said. "That aggravates everyone."

He acknowledged that this is an issue of "perception" of ineligible migrants being able to vote, not necessarily the reality, but it's one that angers many conservatives.

"The tension builds as the perception increases," he said.

And Winn noted Harris could be a threat to the country simply because she is not up to the job at a time when Winn sees the country as already involved in the equivalent of a world war.

"Someone can become a threat because they're incompetent in their job," Winn said.

The threat of incompetence

This is one of the points on which I agreed with Winn and Smith. Someone can be a threat because they're incompetent — I think back to Trump dealing badly with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.

But of course it could end up being true of Harris, as well, if she wins.

And I was struck that many of the comments they heard that concerned them came from Harris supporters such as Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Mark Cuban, not from Harris herself. Whereas, what worries about Trump are things that he himself says and promises.

In short, I see the threats they perceive from Harris as being more indirect and theoretical than the threats I perceive from Trump. The mass deportation he promises, for example, would be disastrous for the country, in my view, especially economically but also socially.

But I do find some solace in our paired fears. Winn, who ran against Republican Juan Ciscomani from the right in the primary and lost, spoke of the need for more dialogue like our conversation. And Smith noted the perceptions we have of our opponents can increase or reduce tensions.

"What I hope your shows is we can reduce some of the tension by talking and communicating about some of these critical issues."

It is usually true, I've found, that when we talk we find common ground. Even if, in this case, it is a common ground of fear for our shared future.

Contact columnist Tim Steller at or ​520-807-7789. On Twitter:

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