Your Hate for Trump is Stronger Than Your Love for Me
Can you believe that I would even have to consider this thought? It is unconscionable that the world has reached a point where this is true, that someone’s hate for a politician is stronger than their love for family and friends. I can’t see this being justifiable in any context, but particularly in this one. I do not live in a marginalized family, black, Asian, Arab, or Muslim, and I do not have any gay or trans family members, so it is even more insane that the people who make up my family would hate Trump to the degree they do.
Even if it were true that there were people in my family who believe Trump’s policies are threatening their life or their lifestyle, that is no excuse to obliterate their love for me, a brother, a close friend, a family member, just because I don’t hate him back. Disliking him and disagreeing with his policies are not enough, I have to hate him and hate him to a degree that I wish him dead.
How is this possible?
You got me. But it is. And it isn’t only me, it’s a lot of people. I am a psychotherapist and have the unique privilege of seeing a very wide and varied demographic. I have many clients who tell me the same thing. And are just as puzzled by it. I have also read many articles and private reports of similar situations—people who are wholly disowned by close friends and family members only because they do not seethe with the same hate and ugliness for Trump as they do.
This, of course, all started with the scamdemic. The hate juices started flowing then, and from the same folks they are flowing from now. I have written before about this “hate craft” and a similar thing is clearly happening here, but it is still puzzling. I do not understand how the hate is reflected the way it is on innocent people. Although I don’t think I would ever fall into this sort of grip myself, I suppose I can understand someone disliking Trump, maybe even hating him. He is a bit of a dick. I have said this before, and I can “get” people really feeling threatened by his tactics—deporting illegal aliens with no compassion or empathy, destroying the “woke” movement with one stroke of a pen, wiping out an entire class of “gender identifying people”—not sweet and cuddly actions, grabbing pussies, and things like that.
Ok then, hate him. Find ways to vote in another president when the time comes. Protest in safe and non-violent ways. But hate me? Why is that? I don’t like the guy all that much either (although he is doing everything that I voted for him to do!) What is this transfer of hate? No one who hates me even knows I voted for him, they just know I don’t hate him myself. I sometimes defend him; I sometimes say, “He didn’t do that,” or “Blame him for something he did, not something he didn’t do!”
I recently lost a 50-year friend who was complaining about Trump’s self-assignment to chair the Kennedy Center board. This friend claimed that the board cancelled a gay choir, lying to them about budget cuts. He went on to say Trump was a homophobe, and the reason the choir was cancelled was because Trump ordered it when he started running the show. The truth actually was that Trump had nothing to do with the cancellation. The group was cancelled before Trump took over. I pointed this out (and even used the sheep’s beloved CNN to back it up), and the guy told me I was a jerk and de-friended me.
Wha?
There is such virtue positioning with all of this it makes me sick. I am not allowed to believe anything unless it aligns perfectly with what these people believe. So much so that if I believe anything that is the slightest bit off, then I am a despicable creature, one that deserves unmitigated hate. I am less than a dog turd in the gutter. I do not deserve friendship with such a superior being, one who has impeccable morals and knows, without question, what is right.
I have other closer relations who are doing the same thing. Since when has politics gotten so serious? These people (the politicians) have been jerking us around for decades. None of them have ever been all that great. Is it worth hating, dissing, and disowning the people you love because of inept, toxic, and lying politicians? I don’t think so. Nothing is worth that. I don’t give a hoot in hell for any of these politicians. If someone I love is in love with a politician who is obviously corrupt, I just figure they have something in their eye and don’t see it. I don’t hate them for it.
Of course, again, this is all part of the plan. And stupid me is astounded by how easy it is for the agenda to execute their plans. I honestly thought it would be more difficult. Silly me. Silly shrew.
Well, liberal Trump-hating folks, I still love you. Even though you may be responsible for the end of the world (if you get your way and somehow stop Trump from carrying out the plans that very well could end the wars in Ukraine and Israel). I just figure you don’t see it. But that is not, in my book, a hate-able offence. For me, it doesn’t matter what your politics are, nor who you voted for; it is how you treat your friends and your loved ones that counts. If I am going to judge you, that is how I will judge you, and that judgment may be harsh. But I will never hate you.
I’ll close with a very well-known quote attributed to George Orwell (but is not found exactly as stated in the book, 1984):
“It’s not so much staying alive, it’s staying human that is important. What counts is that we don’t betray each other.”
Hear, hear.
Dr. Hayen,
As a psychologist in an active private practice, I have also experienced this hatred syndrome of Trump. It is always uncomfortable to hear the extreme declarations of disrespect and harm from otherwise caring people who love their families and communities. I have often been exhausted by witnessing this type of commentary, having to maintain a presence of love and knowing what and where to address their feelings in the context of well being. It is very hard at times. Ironically, this has also shaped me to look at my biases from the standpoint of being in alignment with the people I see, and how this affects my ability to be helpful. I know that when the hate speech is in engagement with someone holding a place of love, some people hear what they say more clearly and it creates a pause. Not always of course, because if I don't validate the negativity, there has been questioning of where I stand on politics. Navigating this territory appears to be part of the job now. It is an intense time and I continue to be supported by the truth I see is becoming more and more available to people, like many things you have written. I appreciate your writing and thank you!
Todd, it's not just TDS. My mother's good friend, who is a dual citizen and who suffers from TDS, stopped talking to my mother for a few weeks because she said she's voting for Pierre Poilievre! Politics in Canada has never been this deranged. I find Mark Carnage to be as personally odious as Trump but with much more dangerous policies, and yet I wouldn't stop talking to my brother who will vote for him or my sister who is a socialist.
This friend of my mother's has TDS so bad that she's afraid to go to California to visit her kids and grandkids. She's an American and believes she needs to wipe her phone of any anti-Trump content because she literally fears she'll be imprisoned if a border agent looks at her phone. Another of her friends owns a property in the US, wants to sell it, but is afraid to go to the US to put it on the market. The people we're describing are clearly in thrall to the MSM as that is the only explanation for this degree of derangement, hate and fear. I'm not sure they'll ever snap out of it...just like the people who are still wearing masks.