Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Halloween, fear and democracy: Finding empathy amid the scary season

Halloween decorations with a sign that reads "Vote like your life depends on it"

Elections and Halloween can combine to create a scary atmosphere.

Noam Galai/Getty Images

Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Halloween, a holiday celebrated around the globe, traces its roots back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The event marked the end of the Celtic year and symbolized a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead blurred, allowing spirits to roam among the living.

While Halloween is often associated with fear, darkness and death, it also represents an opportunity to confront our fears in a communal way. We dress up, share stories of ghosts and let ourselves feel scared for fun. Ironically, this holiday centered on facing fears falls less than a week before the elections, a time when many are most politically afraid. This Election Day, a majority of Americans are feeling fear about the outcome of the presidential election, which falls five days after Halloween, with some fearing what happens if Kamala Harris gets elected and some fearing what might happen if Donald Trump wins.


As the candidates sprint to the finish line, they are both playing on this fear.

As Arash Javanbakht, an associate professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University, noted in The Fulcrum in August,

“Instead of excitement about the upcoming election, many of my patients and friends – regardless of political affiliation – report they’re terrified at the thought of the ‘other side’ winning. Democrats tell me they fear Donald Trump will end our democracy; Republicans are afraid Kamala Harris will turn the United States into a socialist society without family values.”

The fears may differ, but the undercurrent of anxiety is remarkably similar.

However, Halloween offers a timely reminder of how we might handle this political dread. It is an opportunity to reframe our fears through costumes, parties and community activities; and to transform those fears into something more constructive. What if, this Halloween, we took a similar approach to our political anxieties? Imagine if, instead of succumbing to anger, dread or even hatred arising from our political disagreements, we transformed that negative energy into empathy and curiosity.

The image of children trick-or-treating is so common that it almost seems transactional, but underneath the joy of receiving a treat from a stranger is a simple act of communities coming together to share in the simple pleasure of giving and receiving, no matter who is under the costume. This exchange, unburdened by judgment or assumptions, is a small but powerful example of how different members of a community can come together to share in a common idea, if only temporarily.

What if we, too, allowed ourselves to adopt this open-hearted spirit, especially when it comes to politics? Rather than seeing those with opposing viewpoints as enemies, what if we approached them with the same curiosity and openness that children bring to each new house on Halloween night? After all, just as no one knows what candy lies behind a neighbor’s door until they knock, we cannot fully understand another person’s perspective until we are willing to engage with it.

Elvis Presley’s song “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” captures this spirit perfectly. Before he sang those famous words in Las Vegas in 1970, he introduced the song with a message:

“There was a guy who said you never stood in that man's shoes or saw things through his eyes or stood and watched with helpless hands while the heart inside you dies. So help your brother along the way, no matter where he starts for the same God that made you, made him too, these men with broken hearts. I'd like to sing a song along the same lines.”

On this Halloween, as we navigate haunted houses and neighborhood streets, we might also take a moment to consider the fears that haunt our political landscape. What if we tried, even briefly, to imagine life from the perspective of those who see the world differently? Could we find a way to turn our collective anxieties into opportunities for connection, rather than letting them deepen our divisions?

Elvis’s song might provide the soundtrack for this effort, reminding us that while fear and division can be powerful, so too can understanding and compassion. This Halloween, let’s try on a new costume — one that sees beyond fear and strives for a deeper understanding of our neighbors. It might just be the treat that our democracy needs.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Read More

Making Eye Contact & Small Talk With Strangers Is More Than Just Being Polite - The Social Benefits of Psychological Generosity

Eyes down, headphones on – what message are you sending?

Getty Images, simonkr

Making Eye Contact & Small Talk With Strangers Is More Than Just Being Polite - The Social Benefits of Psychological Generosity

How much do you engage with others when you’re out in public? Lots of people don’t actually engage with others much at all. Think of commuters on public transportation staring down at their phones with earbuds firmly in place.

As a professor of social psychology, I see similar trends on my university campus, where students often put on their headphones and start checking their phones before leaving the lecture hall on the way to their next class.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bridgebuilding Effectiveness

Hands together in unison.

Getty Images, VioletaStoimenova

Bridgebuilding Effectiveness

In a time of deep polarization and democratic fragility, bridgebuilding has become a go-to approach for fostering civic cohesion in the U.S. Yet questions persist: Does it work? And how do we know?

With declining trust, rising partisanship, and even political violence, many are asking what the role of dialogue might be in meeting democracy’s demands. The urgency is real—and so is the need for more strategic, evidence-based approaches.

Keep ReadingShow less
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
a red hat that reads make america great again

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Recently, while listening to a podcast, I came across the term “reprise” in the context of music and theater. A reprise is a repeated element in a performance—a song or scene returning to reinforce themes or emotions introduced earlier. In a play or film, a familiar melody might reappear, reminding the audience of a previous moment and deepening its significance.

That idea got me thinking about how reprise might apply to the events shaping our lives today. It’s easy to believe that the times we are living through are entirely unprecedented—that the chaos and uncertainty we experience are unlike anything before. Yet, reflecting on the nature of a reprise, I began to reconsider. Perhaps history does not simply move forward in a straight line; rather, it cycles back, echoing familiar themes in new forms.

Keep ReadingShow less
Following Jefferson: Promoting Intergenerational Understanding Through Constitution-Making

An illustration depicting the U.S. Constitution and Government.

Getty Images, Douglas Rissing

Following Jefferson: Promoting Intergenerational Understanding Through Constitution-Making

Towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson became fatalistic. The prince and poet of the American Revolution brooded—about the future of the country he birthed, to be sure; but also about his health, his finances, his farm, his family, and, perhaps most poignantly, his legacy. “[W]hen all our faculties have left…” he wrote to John Adams in 1822, “[when] every avenue of pleasing sensation is closed, and athumy, debility, and malaise [is] left in their places, when the friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know not, is death an evil?”

The question was rhetorical, of course. But it revealed something about his character. Jefferson was aware that Adams and he—the “North and South poles of the Revolution”—were practically the only survivors of the Revolutionary era, and that a new generation was now in charge of America’s destiny.

Keep ReadingShow less