Hate

There’s a lot of hate going round these days; in fact, “hate” has become a sort of cross between a technical term, and a rhetorical weapon in the last several decades.  This means that people accuse someone of hating something or someone just to get a desired result, such as embarrassing them; or people say that they hate someone when they really mean something else, and so on.  I’m going to try and make the case that, at least some of the instances when we are accused of hating someone, or when we suspect that we hate someone, are counterproductive.

Trump.  Hating Trump is a total waste of time.  Obviously many of us feel betrayed by the actions he has taken, and by his past behavior and his utterances, and so on.  All this is aggravated by the Press focusing on his two divorces (or however many).  Now wait.  Ronald Reagan was divorced; what is the bid deal?  Trump does tend to make jokes about his divorces, but a weak sense of humor should not be cause for hate.

Some of the most annoying things about Trump is the team he has gathered around him.  Many Republicans think that this team encourages Trump to do and say things that are mean, vicious, inappropriate, and bad for the country.  There is a reason for this.  Trump’s choice of staff is made with an eye to Trump’s comfort, rather than the good of the nation, or even the good of the GOP.  Why?  Because Trump has realized that there is no GOP that he can figure out.  They all seem to contradict each other.  The one thing that they all agree on, is that they hate the democrats.

Democrats.  Many different sorts of people probably have good reason for hating the Democrats.
They encourage Women, especially into complaining about being mistreated by guys.
They encourage Blacks and Minorities, and those Mexicans.
They keep being nice to those horrible Iranians.
They keep diverting funds to environmental causes.
They hate businesses, and want to stop subsidizing Exxon-Mobil, and destroy Coal.

The list is endless.  Many of the things Democrats fight for, Republicans secretly want to fight for, too.  But once Democrats espouse a cause, it becomes spoilt for Republicans.  For instance, Republicans would have liked to do Health Reform in such a way that their Health Insurance stocks would keep bringing in good dividends, but the Dems screwed that up.  The Dems (the Republicans believe) screw everything up!  Hoo boy.

But the Republicans, who proudly had various initiatives that they could support, now only have a very few initiatives: annoy all foreign governments as fast as possible, lower taxes, and start a war.  (They don't really want a WALL.  That was just a joke.  Dems obviously do not have a sense of humor.  Not the successful Dems, anyway.)

I guess that I’m saying that it is hate that drives Republicans.  The more things that the Democrats like, that the Republicans hate, the more exciting their rallies become.

Socialism.  There are lots of people who do not like people teaming up together to do anything.  If people pool their resources to get better health care, that's Socialism.  If people team up together to get better pay and better working conditions, that's Trade Unionism.  (We have to speak differently about Police Unions.)  Lots of conservatives even despised the Co-operative Movement, which began to decline in the eighties, but which stubbornly stays alive, if in a slightly more Capitalist-Friendly form.

Once a political party has nothing going for it except hating the other party, we normally say that they are philosophically bankrupt, but in Our Great Nation, philosophical bankruptcy is not really a problem.

Trump Again.  The other day I saw a book with an interesting cover, so I bought it.  It was on sale, so I grabbed it without looking at it closely.

It was a book of cartoons.  Every page was a cartoon ridiculing Trump, with a caption that was a quote from someone—occasionally Trump himself!—to illuminate the cartoon.  I got the distinct impression that the author really hated Trump.

I believe that hating a person so intensely saps our energy.  For a brief time, it may energize you to beat the bushes, and get up the vote.  But, long term, hate causes deep problems.  What comes after the elections, no matter what the outcome?

That book I was talking about: it was very funny.  But if a Trump loyalist was to see it, their hate glands would be stimulated beyond control.

Other Republicans have steeled themselves to just ignore Democratic rhetoric; to let it just wash over them, like water off a duck’s back.  I am a rock, they think to themselves, and they are just smoke.  I suspect that anything the Democrats win in the face of conflict will be very temporary.  Obamacare was an exception, simply because it was such a clever piece of legislation.  Most of the hard work of Democrats in the past have been simply negated.

The Supreme Court.  The one way that anyone can pass legislation that cannot be reversed, is to have a Supreme Court that just says no.  Mitch McConnell, bless him, has devoted his last days in the Senate, to assembling just such a Supreme Court.  Luckily for us, it is not easy to herd lawyers, and Chief Justice Roberts has often stood up to the bullying of the GOP, as has other conservative justices.  We don’t know what actions the GOP or Trump have taken that has hardened the heart of these justices against the excesses of the GOP, but there must be a few.

I have no further wisdom to offer, other than to advise against too much hate.  This is the essence of Obama’s mantra: Don’t boo.  Vote.

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