Introduction
The Politics of Hate is the most dangerous threat facing the United States today. We have lost our great democratic traditions which have made this country great for centuries and replaced them with a crude tribal system of politics in which the country is evenly divided and each group hates the other one. In a healthy democracy, the various political parties are fierce competitors who are competing for power through the electoral process. The candidates who can do the most good for America are supposed to win elections. Today the Democrats and Republicans see the opposing party as enemies to be destroyed at any cost. We no longer accept the results of our elections, nor do we respect the rule of law. The political parties stir up resentment, rage, and hatred, for the other party. The mud-slinging turns into insults, followed by violent rhetoric, which results in physical violence, and people have been injured and killed in the current environment. If current trends continue, we will eventually wind up in a bloody civil war. It is imperative that we change the way we look at each other, bring out the best in everyone, and then compete for power, based on who can do the most good for America.
Hate Is Dominating Politics
In American Politics, hate leads to hate, as Democrats hate Republicans, and conservatives hate liberals and progressives. The mudslinging and insults have led to verbal violence, and inevitably to physical violence. The political system is breaking down, the country is becoming ungovernable, and civil war looms on the horizon. There is a very dangerous tradition developing in which the citizens do not accept the outcome in elections. When President Obama was elected in 2008, many Republicans acted as if he was not their president, and they refused to work with President Obama to find common ground and promote effective public policies. In 2016, President Trump made everything worse when he campaigned against everyone and every institution and acted like the nation’s saviour. Of course, his divisive campaign developed great animosities throughout the country. Many Democrats did not accept him as their president, and immediately began to initiative impeachment activities. There is a great chance that President Trump will be impeached. President Trump is already warning that if he is impeached, it will produce civil war like conditions in this country.
The Deep State
Civil service personnel, who have great power and sensitive positions, are overcome by hate and are no longer reliable. Political leaders do not always know how or even if their directives will be carried out, and this threatens our democracy. These government workers are no longer loyal to their jobs or the American People, and promote their political party and interests instead. For example, when a whistle blower complained about President Trump allegedly asking Ukrainian Government to investigate former Vice President Biden and his family, President Trump argued that the whistle blower was just another political hack.
The Presidential Election of 2020
President Trump conducted an interview with Time Magazine and in July 2019, Time published a revealing article, titled My Whole Life is a Bet-Inside Trump’s Plan to keep the White House. The re-election campaign of 2020 is President Trump’s election, as he has terminated any staff member who does not agree with him. Traditional wisdom is for President Trump to run for re-election with a bi-partisan message that unites the country. Of course, Trump is doing the exact opposite. He is not uniting the country or reaching out to swing voters. Instead he is concentrating on voter turnout as he tries to rile up and infuriate all of his supporters so they all turn out and vote for him. Everyone must show up and vote. The key is making Trump’s instincts for America’s sore spots run the engine of a political machine designed to infuriate supporters. The political machine is a perpetual outrage machine that is designed to get the voters to the polls. The political machine uses automated settings on Internet platforms such as Facebook and Google to buy massive digital ads every time Trump ignites a major firestorm. The program is actually simple. Trump says something offensive or controversial and that drives a surge on the search engines and develops an opportunity to use online advertisements. These advertisements encourage supporters to contact the campaign by texting or taking campaign-generated polls, and of course, to buy things from the campaign such as Trump hats, yard signs, beer coolers and witch hunt decals from the campaign online store. All of these activities allow the campaign to acquire voter contact information.
False Threats
President Trump even resorts to false threats to infuriate people. A rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan in late March illustrates the point. Trump issued an off the cuff threat to close the border if Mexico did not stop two large caravans heading toward the southwest border, and the crowd erupted in cheers. Encouraged by the response, President Trump told his staff he wanted to move ahead with a plan to close the ports of entry. A series of three tweets were written and released on Trump’s Twitter feed the next morning, announcing that large sections of the border would be closed during the following week. As news stories and web searches skyrocketed, the campaign bought digital ads about immigration. Of course, the President later backed off the threat, but his campaign kept the program going by spending $250,000 over the next nine weeks for ads on Facebook and paying for clicks on Google Search. Using these techniques, the campaign has built a list of 35 million voter contacts. When Trump campaigned in Republican areas before the midterm elections, campaign officials asked attendees to text WALL OF TRUMP to phone numbers posted on scoreboards and signs inside the arena. Those cell-phone numbers, and other data collected through other means, make it possible for the campaign to develop a community base map of energized supporters, and potential voters and volunteers. The campaign calls this group “the Army of Trump.”
Trump Rallies
Since 2015, Trump rallies produce a combination of tribal resentment, rage, and hatred. This thrills President Trump when the people respond. He boasts of 120,000 people requesting tickets to his official re-election kick-off in the Orlando arena on June 18.
The slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ has been updated to ‘Keep America Great’, but the tone and the strategy of the campaign remain the same. The President still stirs up the resentment, rage, and hatred in the people. In Orlando, Florida, Trump promised to build a wall to keep dangerous aliens out and labelled the Democrats’ immigration policies a great betrayal of the American way of life and the middle class. The President said that the swamp in Washington still needs draining. The crowd’s enthusiasm lessened when he discussed his achievements, but the hatred factor worked as the crowd broke out in wild calls to lock up Hillary Clinton when he mentioned her name. The President accused the Democrats of using the same tactics that he himself uses. He said, “Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice and rage.” As evidence he pointed to the investigation by the House of Representatives of his 2016 campaign ties to Russia and potential obstruction of justice by the President.
“They want to destroy you, and they want to destroy our country as we know it,” the President said.
The Impeachment Hearings
The current impeachment hearings demonstrate another threat to our democracy as the rule of law is breaking down. No one knows how the issue will end, and it could produce a Constitutional crisis, a breakdown in the rule of law, and violence and rioting in the streets. Both sides increasingly see the courts as a mechanism to impose their will on the other, and not as a means to achieve justice. The White House declared that it will halt any and all cooperation with what it termed the “illegitimate” impeachment probe by House Democrats, which escalated the constitutional clash between President Trump and Congress. Trump’s attorneys sent a lengthy letter to House leaders stating White House refusal to participate in the impeachment proceedings.
White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone, wrote that, “Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretence of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it.” The White House objects to the inquiry as the House has not voted to begin an impeachment investigation of President Trump. The White House also claims that Trump’s due process rights are continuing to be violated. Predictably, The Democrats responded in kind. House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff tweeted in response that Trumps’ refusal to cooperate means that the President believes he is above the law.
Conclusion: Hate attracts Hate
This article clearly demonstrates that hate attracts hate, and President Trump and his administration used this truth to get elected in 2016 and are using it again to get re-elected in 2020. American Society is in transition as the World War II Generation and the Baby Boomers die and retire and are replaced by the younger generations and the Millennials. This transition is extremely difficult as the America of 2050 will be radically different from the America of 2000. The groups losing power are radically different from the groups gaining power. The challenge for American Statesmen is to make this transition as successful and peaceful as possible, and to build an America that is better than ever. This requires a blending of the best ideas which both groups bring to the table and this should be accomplished in the traditional American Way, by resolving all of our disagreements and conflicts at the ballot box and in the courts. The two groups are radically different demographically and ideologically and these differences are exasperated by the dominating roles women are beginning to play in America. The paradox is that it is very difficult to build a new country and extremely easy for the leaders of each group to blame the other, whip up human emotions, get each group to hate the other, and then simply ask people to support the cause through voting. In this environment, hate attracts hate, and this becomes the primary political strategy that makes electoral victory possible. The great problem is that if we continue on this road, the country will become ungovernable, there will be rioting and a great outbreak of violence, and eventually a civil war. This article is designed to avoid that needless tragedy.