The scariest movie of the year so far has little to do with zombies, werewolves, haunted houses, space invaders, or even serial killers. Veteran Emmy Award-winning producer, writer, and director Andrew Goldberg’s excellent new film White with Fear inspires more terror than any of the usual shock genre films! Sadly, it is a true story!
Goldberg has created the year’s most horrific film by revisiting the highlights of the last 60 years of United States political history, a history that threatens the existence of the U.S. and, by extension, the entire world.
White with Fear chronicles the rise of racial and class fears in American politics, beginning with Presidential candidate Richard Nixon. Nixon’s very conscious, cynical political calculus helped him develop the template that has dominated the Republican Party for over half a century. To win in politics, you must scare white voters without seeming to be racist. Nixon figured, “You have to face the fact the whole problem is really the Blacks! The key is that you had to devise a system that recognizes this problem without being explicitly racist.”
Because our national credo is based on economic opportunity for all, the fear of “the other” has to be expressed as potential crime and violence. The racialize understanding of crime projects whites as victims. Only by embracing the programs of right-wing politicians will white people be safe. The success of this strategy, of course, relies on making sure that whites are in the majority. Immigration must be minimized, and people of color need to be controlled.
Two key Nixon operatives developed these principles of his program. Kevin Philips advocated the deployment of fear to manipulate the electorate. Fellow Nixon advisor Pat Buchanan used fear to divide the voters along racial rather than class lines. As Buchanan propounded, Republicans needed to divide the country to consolidate their control. Nixon skillfully used the fear of people of color, communists, and even change itself to win two unsettlingly corrupt presidencies.
This policy was fostered not only by Republican Presidents. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch built his Fox News Network spreading such fear. His network helped relocate many of the threats to whites as coming from muslim terrorists. Murdoch employed former Nixon operative Roger Ailes to commodify the dumbed-down, fast and loose, right-wing Fox News propaganda machine. Fox hardly explained why muslims violently reacted to American encroachments in the Middle East. It was enough to identify these people of color as a threatening enemy, not just of the corporations that ruled the U.S. economy, but of all Americans.
Vicious anti-Black rhetoric continued to have a special place lining Murdoch’s pocketbook and airwaves. But Fox TV branched out to fan Islamophobic hysteria, keeping topical and widening the fear he helped instill into his audiences. This fear blocked congressional attempts at immigration reform and fueled the Tea Party’s rise against President Barack Obama.
White with Fear does an especially good job tracing the rise of avid right-winger Donald Trump through the Fox channels to the Presidency. Trump has even dropped Nixon’s earlier attempt to soft pedal his racism. Trump regime fear-mongering has ranged from the petty lies challenging Obama’s birthplace, family, citizenship, and religion to publishing pictures depicting the Obamas as apes. Books by and about Black people have been pulled out of libraries, and Black officials in much of public service have been threatened and driven out.
News clips show rabidly right-wing Fox commentators like Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh spewing incessant anti-Black vitriol, as Trump himself repeatedly claims that Obama created America’s racial divide. We even see “moderate” Republican Presidential Mitt Romney feeding this frenzy, telling crowds that “No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know where I was raised and who I am.”
In stark contrast, news analyst Brian Stelter, former RNC Spokesperson Tim Miller, and Princeton Professor Eddie Gaude attempt to assuage fears using data, actual history, logic, and rational dialogue.
Goldberg’s White with Fear does well to deploy all these resources to chronicle the sweep of our times. Still growth and consolidation of the right-wing fear machine is unrelenting. Because it is so visceral, it remains a toxic impediment to good government and civil peace itself. For some, White with Fear is a good education; for others, it may serve as a call to action.
White with Fear premieres on PBS March 24, 2026
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
