The United States can survive most policies – good or bad – carried out by a president.
What we may not be able to survive is the polarization fueled by the fiery waves of hatred emanating from President Trump, the latest of target of which were Democrats, when he declared on nationwide television that he “hates Democrats.”
I hate as well, but I hate misguided policies and the stupidity and cupidity of most of Trump’s supporters in government. But hating all Republicans?
My wife and I have friends, neighbors, and relatives who are staunch Trump supporters and often Republicans. Most of them are good people who’d do almost anything to help. While I cannot understand why they support unwaveringly a President who spouts vileness and hatred for anyone who disagrees with him and who espouses policies that, in many cases, will have severe adverse consequences on the country, I do not hate them. I find it hard to believe that they accept his lies unthinkingly, but I don’t hate them.
I also hate quite a few policies espoused by extreme leftist Democrats, but I don’t hate them, either. I do think their extremism enabled Trump’s victory and supplied fuel for his hatred campaigns.
As I’ve written here before, one of the greatest problems with unthinking or violent hatred is that it consumes people and makes them stupid, and that is exactly what Trump is accomplishing with his continuing hate-fueled tirades. He’s using hatred to enact laws and establish policies that are detrimental to the best interests of the nation.
Yes, among other things, we need to get our fiscal house in order and expel immigrants who have committed crimes other than merely being here without proper documentation. But the legislation just passed by Congress primarily gives tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and actually takes more from most Americans in other ways. Unthinking spending cuts have already had to be rescinded in many cases because they targeted vital government functions, while not touching obsolete military bases even the Pentagon has wanted to close.
Trump’s immigration policies are expelling foreign students who entered the U.S. legally and who paid money to U.S. colleges and universities. Many of these students, as in the past, would like to stay and contribute to making America great. The vast majority of “illegal” immigrants swept up for deportation were not criminals beyond not having entered the country legally. Many others swept up entered legally, and ICE and even Trump have ignored the legality of their presence. Overall, the rate of criminal offenses among “illegal” immigrants is far lower than the rate of criminality among U.S. citizens.
And those are just a few of the stupidities created by Trump’s waves of hatred, and those stupidities will continue so long as unthinking hatred is widespread.