Same here. I don't hate them back. I don't even talk to them about it. I block their phone number, auto-delete their emails and voilà, I never hear from them again. Problem solved. Peace and quiet. I started to use this technique during the "pandemic." My blacklist is very, very long.
This is not the first time something like this is happening. Hannah Arendt or the beginning of the Spanish Civil War provide important insights into where we are now.
I don’t get it. Hate consumes so much energy. Perhaps hate has grown to such intensity across so many people that it is becoming a black hole of sorts? Unlike love, which creates energy, I believe the collective hate will burn out. What happens until then, and what it looks like afterwards, is another question.
Couldn’t agree more, sir. How is it that some of us are inoculated (mostly) from fear? We know it’s a powerful tool of emotional and social control for sure. But what’s behind that? Some of us are questioners - a want/need to understand; deep sense-making. This is a laborious pursuit that requires Herculean work. Most prefer to believe. This is the allure of knowledge without actually understanding. It’s passive and requires no work. True Believers seek a cause and a leader (applies to both blue and red teams). Questioners tend to seek purpose and our creator.
Hate is the result of fear, of course. This hate we are experiencing is formidable because the fear is manufactured and as such becomes delirious. I has no natural boundaries because it is constantly fed with lies and deceit. Look at the TDS phenomenon. There is a lot to dislike about Trump, and even things to fear if they come into reality, but the fear that TDS people are feeling is largely manufactured.
How did it ever come to this? It’s so hard to wrap your mind around it. I do see a correlation between those who are vaxed and those hating Trump, they appear to be one and the same in my experience. So is it that the vax is making these folks crazy? Or is it that the easily influenced (sheep) do as they’re told (get the vax, hate Trump, love trannies and drag queen shows, welcome the illegal invasion) and that’s what we’re experiencing. I don’t know because a lot of the vaxed don’t brag about their vaccine status anymore
It is indeed a mystery. The intensity, and irrationality, of the hate indicates to me that it is vax-caused. But that would be so damn weird I cannot wrap my head around it. There is a strange mental process that takes place (or doesn't take place) that could be a result of cognitive deficiency caused by the vaccine. But wow does it seem selective...maybe the vax just weakens something in the cognitive process, and when the media brainwashing kicks in, the mind just can't deal with it. Who knows.
I doubt that people can be much known short of extensive direct contact. I might have known my mother best, and it's only been in the years after her passing, as I mature, that in life review, I (might) better understand her. That impresses me with my ignorance, and vivifies the ancient wisdom expressed by Socrates. I suspect (project?) that people who hate others, especially based on indirect reports, are addicted to anger. The hate object might reflect their values, or not.
I agree with the Christian precept that one should return kindness for hate, understanding that resentment is the punishment, e.g., like drinking poison expecting another to die. In retrospect, I understand, a bit, how blinding and miserable anger can be. My habituation to anger is such that I might compensate for anger through a spin-cycle of guilt, as in Proverbs 25:21-22, i.e., kindness as heaping coals, at least until compassion might arise from my recalling my past misery of anger.
Suffering anger, or judgment, seems the remedy for the error, at least for me. I see the influence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhonism on Socrates, and Hellenistic, if not Buddhist, influence on Christianity. I notice common threads of truth about human behavior in diverse disciplines affecting philosophy of mind.
Todd, the cult is a hard habit to break.... it started with the pandemic and it morphed into politics.... this is what "they" want... for us to hate and fight each other instead of seeing "them" as the real enemy... I am in the same boat but with family members.... it's hard. ❤️
It can be confusing hearing sheep use a lot of the sound bytes that we created, loss of freedom, persecution, oligarchy, the dangers of the corporate technocracy, but mean entirely different things, or at least see the causes entirely differently (certainly not liberalism at fault, or the global world order, but instead Trump et al at fault.)
Sometimes I think "hey, they are actually figuring this out and waking up!!" HA HA HA HA
This is exactly why I have done no social media since the middle of the scamdemic, people have truly lost their ability to think or reason at all. They are victims of the media that has completely manipulated them. I refuse to take part in the hate fest, as it is how we are being divided. "United we stand, divided we fall" is the oldest trick in the book.
I stay in social media because I feel like I need to keep my finger on the pulse of societal idiocy...I also have a lot of foreign friends I would have no way to keep in touch with (although that is really a lame excuse). Good for you getting rid of it.
That's exactly what I've been seeing in my circle. People hate Trump so much you can't say anything positive about him. Recently, his Administration said they were going to cease all animal testing of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc. Very good news. I'm part of a vegan community, many of whom are ethical vegans who went vegan for the sake of the animals. When I told people about this, instead of being glad, they just started spouting hate for Trump. Amazing. And now it's ok for people to post about killing Trump and/or his supporters on social media? Wow. Just wow.
Wow, just wow, is right on. I know just what you mean, RFK's efforts to make meds safer for kids is met with the same sort of thing. It is quite amazing to me all the way around. These people are nuts.
There is a famous picture of a guy at a Nazi rally refusing to do the Nazi salute. Human nature IS group think. I don't really know where I got my rare ability to think independently. It probably isn't something I chose, because it is a very lonely life to not be one of the herd. People crave belonging, but the few cannot sacrifice critical thinking in order to fit in. We shouldn't really be surprised by anything. History is littered with images of dangerous group think, and it will be with us forever. TDS is just the latest iteration.
Exactly right. There used to be so much more tolerance for "outliers"...people still thought outliers were strange, and/or funny, but they tolerated them and tolerated different ways of thinking even if they disagreed. That is all gone. Any deviation from the "group think" is considered an existential threat. There is no tolerance at all. Everything must be the same.
And they blab on about DEI, there is little regard for diversity...the whole point of the cancel culture is to eliminate diversity, God forbid anyone is "different"...look at TV shows and movies that are period pieces, see how they deal with different cultures, there is zero regard for history. If I were black I would be livid, blacks in history pieces are not persecuted. Everyone gets along fine. It is so odd.
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.
Wow...that's pretty amazing, but does not surprise me. Yes, Poilievre is the Canadian Trump to these people. And again, as you say, Carney is truly a problem. But Canadians will go along with being stripped of their freedoms in order to follow this insane "net zero" crap. The climate change ruse is probably one of the biggest "bought and sold" concepts to hit all of us. No one will consider for two seconds it is all inflated for the NWO to use to jerk us around...common sense would tell us otherwise, but that's long gone.
I ask these same questions every day , where is the hate coming from ? When I gently broach the question of “ why “ most folks can’t answer with any specifics. I don’t want to “play psychotherapist” especially since we have the Master at the table . I have wondered from time to time whether the haters really are just projecting all the internal ugliness / unresolved stuff within them .
According to Jungian theory people with such hate are definitely projecting. When you think of the basic premise of a liberal it makes sense that their ugliness is going to be in the shadow—think about the Kamala Harris campaign, "joy, joy, joy." Liberals pride themselves in "loving all" and being tolerant of everything because of their loving hearts. What better setup for an non-integrated shadow. So, once a target is set up by the media, they let it roar.
Remembering the last time Trump was President, the legacy media never let up on him for the entire time (prior to the election and every day after). So this time they have ramped up the collective hate they have for him and have managed to get ordinary people to join the chorus. It is disturbing how easy people can be manipulated. To lose friendships and relationships over something that we don't individually control seems very absurd to me, as well. When people say they hate President Trump for this or that reason, my response usually is, "He has done some good things and also has said some inflammatory things; no President or Prime Minister is perfect." So far, I haven't been cancelled by anyone (yet). But I have to admit some folks are like rabid dogs. Disturbing to see.
To put it very simply, the media is really the cause for all of this. It is the carrier wave for just about everything. And again the odd part of all this is that people are so gullible to what the media tells them.
Interesting you have not been "cancelled"...if I indicate at all that I am "reasonable" and "take in all viewpoints" I get immediately cancelled, and labeled a "Trump lover."
It is the media. My friend who was afraid to drive from ontario to florida is apolitical, but believed the media hype about america being dangerous for canadians. He did go and it was fine, but the news got to his thinking
Strange the media is pushing that the US is DANGEROUS for Canadians...so odd. So Canadians think if the majority of Americans voted for Trump, and that Trump hates Canadians, then Americans hate Canadians and want to hurt them? Wow.
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!
It is very difficult being a therapist in this environment. I typically do not let on my shrew-ness unless it is clear the client is also a shrew. If I see they are the opposite, it is difficult to stay neutral...which in and of itself is an indication to them. Like I say in the article, being neutral about Trump is no enough, you have to HATE him to be acceptable.
My parents are hooked on 24/7 trump hate for the last 10 years. They now have ai generated hate channels. They are lost. I’m currently visiting them and my dad is deaf, so I have to listen from the other side of the house. Most of it is comical it is so blatantly over the top.
My best friend is a clinical psychologist who saw through the scamdemic and was a closeted Canadian Trump supporter for the same reasons as Todd -- prefers his policies but doesn't care for the man personally. The majority of her clients are liberal women so she has the same problem you describe, plus her colleagues are all of the left to varying degrees. She is really tired of walking that line and feeling inauthentic in her professional life. I don't know how you and she manage, but I guess that's why I'm not a therapist. Perhaps you could start an underground support group for others in the mental health space who aren't consumed by hate for political figures and who aren't batshit crazy progressives!
It is easier, at least for me, to deal with Trump haters as clients. This IS Canada, and not until recently (with the tariffs) Trump was just an oddity, not necessarily a hate object to a Canadian (now he is, of course).
The one (or ones) I cannot easily deal with is the trans issue, since it is against federal law in Canada to affirm biological sex if you are working with a trans client. The whole suicide thing will become a problem too if they eventually pass the legislation to include mental health as a reason for MAID.
Great title great point!
Same here. I don't hate them back. I don't even talk to them about it. I block their phone number, auto-delete their emails and voilà, I never hear from them again. Problem solved. Peace and quiet. I started to use this technique during the "pandemic." My blacklist is very, very long.
This is not the first time something like this is happening. Hannah Arendt or the beginning of the Spanish Civil War provide important insights into where we are now.
Arendt is one of my all time favourites. I quote her all of the time.
Even though it is easy enough to remove these people from our lives, sometimes it is very hurtful to lose friends and family.
I don’t get it. Hate consumes so much energy. Perhaps hate has grown to such intensity across so many people that it is becoming a black hole of sorts? Unlike love, which creates energy, I believe the collective hate will burn out. What happens until then, and what it looks like afterwards, is another question.
Couldn’t agree more, sir. How is it that some of us are inoculated (mostly) from fear? We know it’s a powerful tool of emotional and social control for sure. But what’s behind that? Some of us are questioners - a want/need to understand; deep sense-making. This is a laborious pursuit that requires Herculean work. Most prefer to believe. This is the allure of knowledge without actually understanding. It’s passive and requires no work. True Believers seek a cause and a leader (applies to both blue and red teams). Questioners tend to seek purpose and our creator.
Hate is the result of fear, of course. This hate we are experiencing is formidable because the fear is manufactured and as such becomes delirious. I has no natural boundaries because it is constantly fed with lies and deceit. Look at the TDS phenomenon. There is a lot to dislike about Trump, and even things to fear if they come into reality, but the fear that TDS people are feeling is largely manufactured.
How did it ever come to this? It’s so hard to wrap your mind around it. I do see a correlation between those who are vaxed and those hating Trump, they appear to be one and the same in my experience. So is it that the vax is making these folks crazy? Or is it that the easily influenced (sheep) do as they’re told (get the vax, hate Trump, love trannies and drag queen shows, welcome the illegal invasion) and that’s what we’re experiencing. I don’t know because a lot of the vaxed don’t brag about their vaccine status anymore
In may parent’s case, I’ve always surmised it’s the 24/7 tv propaganda
It is indeed a mystery. The intensity, and irrationality, of the hate indicates to me that it is vax-caused. But that would be so damn weird I cannot wrap my head around it. There is a strange mental process that takes place (or doesn't take place) that could be a result of cognitive deficiency caused by the vaccine. But wow does it seem selective...maybe the vax just weakens something in the cognitive process, and when the media brainwashing kicks in, the mind just can't deal with it. Who knows.
I doubt that people can be much known short of extensive direct contact. I might have known my mother best, and it's only been in the years after her passing, as I mature, that in life review, I (might) better understand her. That impresses me with my ignorance, and vivifies the ancient wisdom expressed by Socrates. I suspect (project?) that people who hate others, especially based on indirect reports, are addicted to anger. The hate object might reflect their values, or not.
People hate a media caricature of Trump. I doubt that they know Trump well enough to hate him. Regardless, Trump seems less relevant than the results he produces. I prefer to focus on policies and results rather than personalities. Character is important, but too distorted by fake news to ascertain, e.g., Trump as a felon. I usually cite https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/appellate-issues-in-the-trump-hush-money-case--the-extraordinary-ordinariness-of-justice-merchan-s-adjudication to argue that appeals are pending.
I agree with the Christian precept that one should return kindness for hate, understanding that resentment is the punishment, e.g., like drinking poison expecting another to die. In retrospect, I understand, a bit, how blinding and miserable anger can be. My habituation to anger is such that I might compensate for anger through a spin-cycle of guilt, as in Proverbs 25:21-22, i.e., kindness as heaping coals, at least until compassion might arise from my recalling my past misery of anger.
Suffering anger, or judgment, seems the remedy for the error, at least for me. I see the influence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhonism on Socrates, and Hellenistic, if not Buddhist, influence on Christianity. I notice common threads of truth about human behavior in diverse disciplines affecting philosophy of mind.
Todd, the cult is a hard habit to break.... it started with the pandemic and it morphed into politics.... this is what "they" want... for us to hate and fight each other instead of seeing "them" as the real enemy... I am in the same boat but with family members.... it's hard. ❤️
See also Stephen Hassan’s b.i.t.e. model
10 For-Sure Signs You're In A Cult
1. A single authoritative person or small group of people create rules to follow.
2. Your group is isolated or encouraged to stay and keep secrets within the in-group.
3. Critical thinking and questioning are met with resistance, deferment, and or punishment.
4. Cults are totalistic.
5. Hostility, sanction, or aggression when leaving the group is brought up.
6. Formal ceremonies and rituals take place to indoctrinate and reaffirm beliefs communally.
7. “Love Bombing" or bipolar behavior.
8. Food, work, and social activity are monitored or controlled.
9. A sense of “community" is extremely valued above the comfort and desire of the individual.
10. Important decisions are influenced or made by the people in charge.
It can be confusing hearing sheep use a lot of the sound bytes that we created, loss of freedom, persecution, oligarchy, the dangers of the corporate technocracy, but mean entirely different things, or at least see the causes entirely differently (certainly not liberalism at fault, or the global world order, but instead Trump et al at fault.)
Sometimes I think "hey, they are actually figuring this out and waking up!!" HA HA HA HA
This is exactly why I have done no social media since the middle of the scamdemic, people have truly lost their ability to think or reason at all. They are victims of the media that has completely manipulated them. I refuse to take part in the hate fest, as it is how we are being divided. "United we stand, divided we fall" is the oldest trick in the book.
I stay in social media because I feel like I need to keep my finger on the pulse of societal idiocy...I also have a lot of foreign friends I would have no way to keep in touch with (although that is really a lame excuse). Good for you getting rid of it.
That's exactly what I've been seeing in my circle. People hate Trump so much you can't say anything positive about him. Recently, his Administration said they were going to cease all animal testing of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc. Very good news. I'm part of a vegan community, many of whom are ethical vegans who went vegan for the sake of the animals. When I told people about this, instead of being glad, they just started spouting hate for Trump. Amazing. And now it's ok for people to post about killing Trump and/or his supporters on social media? Wow. Just wow.
Wow, just wow, is right on. I know just what you mean, RFK's efforts to make meds safer for kids is met with the same sort of thing. It is quite amazing to me all the way around. These people are nuts.
There is a famous picture of a guy at a Nazi rally refusing to do the Nazi salute. Human nature IS group think. I don't really know where I got my rare ability to think independently. It probably isn't something I chose, because it is a very lonely life to not be one of the herd. People crave belonging, but the few cannot sacrifice critical thinking in order to fit in. We shouldn't really be surprised by anything. History is littered with images of dangerous group think, and it will be with us forever. TDS is just the latest iteration.
Exactly right. There used to be so much more tolerance for "outliers"...people still thought outliers were strange, and/or funny, but they tolerated them and tolerated different ways of thinking even if they disagreed. That is all gone. Any deviation from the "group think" is considered an existential threat. There is no tolerance at all. Everything must be the same.
And they blab on about DEI, there is little regard for diversity...the whole point of the cancel culture is to eliminate diversity, God forbid anyone is "different"...look at TV shows and movies that are period pieces, see how they deal with different cultures, there is zero regard for history. If I were black I would be livid, blacks in history pieces are not persecuted. Everyone gets along fine. It is so odd.
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.
Wow...that's pretty amazing, but does not surprise me. Yes, Poilievre is the Canadian Trump to these people. And again, as you say, Carney is truly a problem. But Canadians will go along with being stripped of their freedoms in order to follow this insane "net zero" crap. The climate change ruse is probably one of the biggest "bought and sold" concepts to hit all of us. No one will consider for two seconds it is all inflated for the NWO to use to jerk us around...common sense would tell us otherwise, but that's long gone.
I ask these same questions every day , where is the hate coming from ? When I gently broach the question of “ why “ most folks can’t answer with any specifics. I don’t want to “play psychotherapist” especially since we have the Master at the table . I have wondered from time to time whether the haters really are just projecting all the internal ugliness / unresolved stuff within them .
According to Jungian theory people with such hate are definitely projecting. When you think of the basic premise of a liberal it makes sense that their ugliness is going to be in the shadow—think about the Kamala Harris campaign, "joy, joy, joy." Liberals pride themselves in "loving all" and being tolerant of everything because of their loving hearts. What better setup for an non-integrated shadow. So, once a target is set up by the media, they let it roar.
Remembering the last time Trump was President, the legacy media never let up on him for the entire time (prior to the election and every day after). So this time they have ramped up the collective hate they have for him and have managed to get ordinary people to join the chorus. It is disturbing how easy people can be manipulated. To lose friendships and relationships over something that we don't individually control seems very absurd to me, as well. When people say they hate President Trump for this or that reason, my response usually is, "He has done some good things and also has said some inflammatory things; no President or Prime Minister is perfect." So far, I haven't been cancelled by anyone (yet). But I have to admit some folks are like rabid dogs. Disturbing to see.
To put it very simply, the media is really the cause for all of this. It is the carrier wave for just about everything. And again the odd part of all this is that people are so gullible to what the media tells them.
Interesting you have not been "cancelled"...if I indicate at all that I am "reasonable" and "take in all viewpoints" I get immediately cancelled, and labeled a "Trump lover."
Oh some have said, "You must watch FOX news". My reply, "I have never watched it in my life" (and true). From there, they don't have a comeback - lol
Same here. I have never owned a tv, and don’t watch online
It is the media. My friend who was afraid to drive from ontario to florida is apolitical, but believed the media hype about america being dangerous for canadians. He did go and it was fine, but the news got to his thinking
Strange the media is pushing that the US is DANGEROUS for Canadians...so odd. So Canadians think if the majority of Americans voted for Trump, and that Trump hates Canadians, then Americans hate Canadians and want to hurt them? Wow.
He was afraid that his vehicle would be vandalized if people saw a canadian license plate in a parking lot.
Crazy Americans Lol
Bizarre programming isn't it?
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!
It is very difficult being a therapist in this environment. I typically do not let on my shrew-ness unless it is clear the client is also a shrew. If I see they are the opposite, it is difficult to stay neutral...which in and of itself is an indication to them. Like I say in the article, being neutral about Trump is no enough, you have to HATE him to be acceptable.
My parents are hooked on 24/7 trump hate for the last 10 years. They now have ai generated hate channels. They are lost. I’m currently visiting them and my dad is deaf, so I have to listen from the other side of the house. Most of it is comical it is so blatantly over the top.
My best friend is a clinical psychologist who saw through the scamdemic and was a closeted Canadian Trump supporter for the same reasons as Todd -- prefers his policies but doesn't care for the man personally. The majority of her clients are liberal women so she has the same problem you describe, plus her colleagues are all of the left to varying degrees. She is really tired of walking that line and feeling inauthentic in her professional life. I don't know how you and she manage, but I guess that's why I'm not a therapist. Perhaps you could start an underground support group for others in the mental health space who aren't consumed by hate for political figures and who aren't batshit crazy progressives!
It is easier, at least for me, to deal with Trump haters as clients. This IS Canada, and not until recently (with the tariffs) Trump was just an oddity, not necessarily a hate object to a Canadian (now he is, of course).
The one (or ones) I cannot easily deal with is the trans issue, since it is against federal law in Canada to affirm biological sex if you are working with a trans client. The whole suicide thing will become a problem too if they eventually pass the legislation to include mental health as a reason for MAID.