“Memo to extreme partisans: If you can’t bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?”
― Walter Kirn
To my right leaning friends who read…who read my blog, don’t shoot the messenger because I’m choosing to quote Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is a necessary quote to help make my point. Please read farther than the quote.
“Not every election will be so filled with venom, misinformation, resentments, and outside interference as this one was. Solutions are going to matter again in politics.”
― Hillary Rodham Clinton, What Happened
I am sorry Mrs. Clinton, I disagree. It is easier to fill an election with venom, misinformation, and resentments than to provide solutions. Solutions require thought and tend to be expensive. Outside interference comes free of charge.
Venomous hatred is America’s new spectator sport with misinformation and resentments leading the cheers. No that is not true. Hatred directed at the “other” side has been around for…ever? Hatred is more of a participatory sport than spectator. Misinformation and resentments are dressed like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders with their high kicks aimed at the heads of their opponents.
Hatred is not new; it just happens at light speed with social media with cowards hiding behind their computer screen.
I can’t help but think of abolitionist Charles Sumner being beaten by pro-slavery Preston Brooks in the hallowed halls of the Senate in 1856. Sumner made the mistake of calling out Brooks’ cousin over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Making it about family honor rather than a squabble over the expansion of slavery, Brooks confronted Sumner in the Senate chamber and almost beat him to death using a thick cane with a golden head.
Bleeding, Sumner managed to stagger up the aisle before collapsing and losing consciousness. Brooks continued to beat the motionless Sumner until his cane broke, at which point he continued to strike Sumner with the remaining piece. While many attempted to come to Sumner’s aid, they were held off at gunpoint.
Brooks was left with a broken cane and Southern sympathizers sent Brooks hundreds of new canes in endorsement of his assault. One was inscribed “Hit him again.” I would call this a breakdown in civil discourse. Sumner was never the same, both physically and emotionally and died of a heart attack in 1874.
I am not immune to feeling hatred. I did want Ted Cruz to throat punch The Donald after Trump insulted Cruz’s wife during a televised debate before the 2016 elections. Cruz being Cruz snuggled up close to The Orange Man instead.
Far beyond throat punching, if you paid attention in US History, one might remember the Hamilton-Burr duel in 1804 which saw Aaron Burr shooting Alexander Hamilton dead. We might end much useless debate today if we allowed our legislators to duel it out…or even “duke it out.” Judging from our love of firearms, many Americans would stand behind this.
Americans like to get a good hate on, we even drum up reasons to hate when none exists. A liberal publication, I know I’m taking a chance with my right leaning friends to quote two liberals, published the opinion of Tom Krattenmaker who described present day hatred as “so thick you can cut it with a knife and eat it with a fork. I’m afraid many of us are finding it a little too tasty.” He was discussing the recent breakdowns in civil discourse.
Hatred has been ingrained throughout the generations of American history and it is easy to point a finger and workup a good loathing for the other side. Hatred is in our genes, and we display our hatred in the strangest manners; Songs about small towns bring out the worst on both sides. Books might make our kids feel bad and should be kept out of their hands. Media darlings who dare to differ from our beliefs need to be boycotted. Sports teams not singing our National Anthem need to move to China.
Strangest recently, a movie about doll characters dressed in pink…the movie portrayed Ken as not masculine enough according to certain pundits. Do you realize neither Barbi nor Ken dolls have genitalia? The stars? I saw a nude scene involving the female lead. Her female parts seem in good form…and then some. Everyone is fair game, even people playing dolls.
Since becoming a nation, we have focused hatred on corrupt politicians for as long as corrupt politicians have been around…which is forever. Andrew Jackson ran as the “anti-corruption” candidate in 1824 (Take note Ted, he also fought a duel when someone insulted his wife). President Grant was up to his neck in graft and corruption…not him personally but people associated with him. The entire Election of 1876 was fraught with corruption. No, it ain’t new but closing our eyes to it seems the new norm.
Hatred isn’t limited to politics but could be a product of politics. Going back to colonial times we “hated” the “redskin”, drumming up support to take their land for better use. That was the basis for our hatred as the natives had the audacity to try and stand up to us.
“No dogs or Irishmen allowed” was our reaction to the Potato Famine. Newly freed slaves better not let the sundown catch you in this town. The Chinese, who were building the railroads for a “fish head and a bowl of rice a day,” had their pigtails cut off. Middle and Eastern immigrants were ridiculed during the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. “Japs” “Krauts” and “Wops” were less than endearing terms used during the war years…and after…and before. Even the “Okies” were turned away at the California border as they migrated to get away from “The Dust Bowl.” We are good at using our hatred to eat our own.
A groundswell of anti-foreign hatred became evident with anti-Asian assaults provoked by blaming China for the Covid pandemic. It didn’t matter that many victims had lived their entire lives in the US.
There was also has the anti-Hispanic hatred element, seen in the call for the wall at our southern border and in the fear of an invasion of Latinos following the inauguration of President Joe Biden. That surge was realized but as soon as Title 42 was rescinded, illegal entries encountered at the border dropped by fifty to seventy percent. Will that continue? Only time will tell.
The “crisis at the border” is not just a political concern but a humanitarian concern. Many on the right who believe in the “crisis at the border” also believe in “The Great Replacement Theory” and don’t seem to care about humanitarian concerns.
Lest I forget, there was a great deal of hatred on display during the January 6th protest, riot, insurrection…or the tour made by peace loving tourists.
It is not just the political right. No one my age should forget the liberal protests and riots of the late Sixties and early Seventies. War protests, civil rights protest, and the 1968 Democratic Convention all turned violent and were fueled by someone’s hatred.
Liberals expressed their hatred by taunting Viet Nam troops returning from the war and bombing or burning symbols of American Imperialism.
The ’67 Detroit riots lasted for five days and forty-three people were killed and over eleven hundred were injured. It also helped to trigger protests across the US that were a part of the “long, hot summer of 1967.”
The Holy Week Uprisings involving several US cities in April of 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The Occupy Movement a decade ago, the Portland Riots after the death of George Floyd and others were liberal protests and riots and led to loss of life and damage in cities other than Portland.
Much hate on both sides and these are just a few examples.
A Newsweek poll conducted by Pure Spectrum found that 23 percent of survey respondents said it was “definitely” or “probably” justifiable to engage in violent protest. Among those polled, self-identified liberals were the most likely to say violent protest was ever justified at 28 percent, followed by conservatives at 25 percent. Ideological moderates were the least likely to say violence against the government was ever justifiable at 17 percent. Thankfully, 77 percent disagree.
Yes, Americans welcome a good hate. I am reminded of my college’s football cheer, “Kill em, kill em, we don’t care. We’ve got a graveyard over there” while pointing at the cemetery next to the stadium. Good, clean American fun.
Don Miller writes both fiction and non-fiction. His latest book, a historical novel of the Depression, Thunder Along the Copperhead, among others may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
Ravings of a Mad Southerner 