Fueling Hatred

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 Unthinking spending cuts have already had to be rescinded in many cases because they targeted vital government functions, while not touching obsolete military bases even the Pentagon has wanted to close.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.

6 thoughts on “Fueling Hatred”

  1. KevinJ says:

    I know this is a little bit tangential, but something struck me this week about Trump:
    1) He has admitted that getting people angry and keeping them that way has worked well for him in business dealings.
    2) He wants to be admired and applauded.

    If the man had any degree of (self-)reflection, he’d realize those two things just don’t go together, and he’d either give one up, or realize he’s a self-sabotager.

    But no…

  2. KTL says:

    I may Mark myself here, but if Trump outright says he hates me then I won’t feel at all bad for claiming the same about him. That said, I can’t believe he would state that he hates a whopping percentage of the American citizenry from his leadership position. I’m no historian, but maybe someone out there can put some perspective on that position. I think it may be even more extreme than Hitler’s position as the head of Germany. If so, I sure wish the media/historians would call him out on that.

  3. Wren Jackson says:

    I’m going to go out on a limb and say there’s two types of hate. There’s unwavering, anger inducing rage hate and there’s hatred of something that is anathema to what you believe.

    So why is that distinction important?

    The reality is, Trump is a threat to my life. He uses people like me as a scapegoat to rile up his base and attack us as a boogey man to justify hatred, bigotry and oppression. I am not joking or being hyperbolic when I say that we are repeating 1930’s Germany and it’s a matter of time before we find out if we stay that way or swing to the other side which could result in 1780’s France.

    If you are a person who thinks I don’t deserve to be alive or just live my life, I hate you. If you support someone who thinks this, I hate you too. I’m not raging, I’m not screaming, I’m just saying the Paradox of Tolerance is real and if you feel me or any other marginalized group deserves to be vilified, hated, attacked and denied basic rights, you’ve forfeited your right for any reasonable discourse.

  4. Postagoras says:

    Evil politicians use hatred and fear because, sadly, it works.

    We all thought that with the end of the Soviet Union, a better future awaited. We didn’t anticipate that a Republican Party who had run on fear of the Red Menace would have to find other menaces closer to home.

    It’s clear that millions of Americans have given up on care for their fellow people as a governing principle. The only thing that apparently can reach them is when they themselves clearly suffer as a result of their own actions.

    As it was so well said in 2015: ‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.

  5. KevinJ says:

    I want to respond more closely to the entry’s point.

    I remember many years ago visiting my grandfather’s farm, and finding a bookshelf full of Reader’s Digest magazines. I took a few down to look at, in curiosity, and they were years old. I read some of them, and enjoyed the novel viewpoints.

    Mostly.

    Then I came to one from 1943. One article was titled, “Why the Nips Are Subhuman.”

    Demonizing those who have attacked you is nothing new. A violent emotional reaction is normal in response to violence.

    And yet.

    When you hate, you diminish the object(s) of your hatred…but you also diminish yourself. You reduce your ability to evaluate them objectively. You reduce the range of responses you can have.

    You also reduce your own empathy, which I would contend is the one aspect of us that makes humans humane.

    So fueling hatred is bad not just for those hated, but for the hater. The President shows once again how he’s so many people’s worst enemy – and his own.

  6. Tom says:

    It seems to me that President Trump cannot construct a sentence where the adjectives do not outnumber the nouns and verbs. His ‘hate’ fades in the ‘light’ of his ego. He appears as the equivalent of Goebbels for the likes of Presidential ‘Adviser’ Miller and he is thus a significant megaphone for Project 2025. I doubt other goals than gold for President Trump.

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