America: You're Being Groomed To Hate
When I think of the level of hatred that has become permissible in politics, I think about my former neighbor who wore 24/7 a custom-made necklace that said "F**k Trump" with pride.
She was the product of a successful grooming to hate.
We would occasionally talk to her in passing and she would often steer the conversation to Trump and you could sense her cortisol levels increasing. She was seething with anger as she invoked his name without provocation because he was her life's villain.
Everything that was wrong with the world was Trump's fault or anyone bad was similar to Trump. One man became the measuring stick to evil in this woman's mind.
She was the epitome of the phrase "there is a thin line between love and hate" because she couldn't stop obsessing over him like a scorned ex-girlfriend and hated him so much that she'd carry his name for strangers to admire her love for hatred.
Despite her overt repulsion over Trump, I had empathy for her because it takes a really miserable person to anoint another human being as the ruler over your emotional state, especially a complete stranger.
I'm always empathetic to people attempting to mask their internal pain with an external source and lonely people struggling for a connection: She was one of those people. She was a single woman with a dog who had a look of loneliness on her face.
I sensed she was struggling with purpose and self-worth and Trump became her distraction from herself. It was far more rewarding for her to yell at her television than it was to resolve her issues.
I remember the days of George W. Bush being called the anti-Christ and other incendiary comments made about him but the wearing of paraphernalia to display your hatred, instead of support for a politician has become a near-religious phenomenon.
I understand why someone does and doesn't like Biden and Trump but I think someone like my neighbor is using politics to accentuate whatever ills them internally. Maybe they lack purpose or need a scapegoat for why their life is filled with hurdles they can't overcome.
Maybe they have a hero complex where they think their advocacy will "save" society from the world's villain. Whatever it may be, I'm disturbed by the amount of people who feel they are required fulfillment by loving to hate someone.
Coincidentally, not long after my neighbor's choice of jewelry, the "F**k Joe Biden" trend began, it revealed that the problem is much bigger than one neighbor: Political hatred and irreverence are becoming normalized and profited from.
Everyone of influence has become invested in perpetuating our division and the more they exclaim how the enemy is not like you, the more they gain from our separation. They will push people already on the edge of the cliff of reasonable disagreement over into hardened disdain.
And it only takes one unstable person to interpret hyperbolic claims that someone is a literal threat to our existence as a call to action to rid the world of this creature like an exterminator and change the course of history.
I mean, what do we expect will happen if we spend years claiming someone is an existential threat to our society? We are being groomed for hatred for someone else's benefit: That F**k Joe Biden shirt cost money, you know?
Your hate makes a lot of people money and your paranoia keeps you glued to the people who are extracting your sanity and wealth to your detriment.
Anyone that tells you that to build someone up you must tear someone else down is manipulating you: You're being groomed to hate.
This is totally correct and it's unfortunate that more people are not aware of it. The various media peddle a stream of unending divisive us vs. them rhetoric, and magnify differences by focusing on the worst representatives of "the other side". In addition, words and actions of opponents are taken out of context, framed inaccurately or flat out misquoted. Relevant facts that don't support the narrative being pushed by the media organization are omitted (and often unknown to presenters and pundits since the habit of understanding one's opponents position is not practiced, despite this being an obvious duty that any news person ought to engage in).
People have no idea of how much their thoughts about "the other side" are manufactured for them by dishonest and lazy media who don't do their actual job which is presenting the totality of the picture on any topic in a thorough and objective manner, equipping people to make up their own minds.
Liberal people often object (justly) that Fox News sometimes reports stories inaccurately. But they have no idea how much the media they trust are even worse.
We are in a rough moment in this country and each person can decide whether they are going to be on the side of good by thinking independently and studying out the positions of their opponents, and by treating opponents the same way they would like to be treated, or just surrender to toxic emotions and simplistic hate narratives.
It is astounding how few people can see this is happening, but as you note hatred of "the other" has psychological motivations.
We've made life too easy; human psyche needs a villain. Before Trump, who didn't this person pin all their hatred on?
My ex was the same way; first, her job was the problem, then when she stopped working, it was where we lived. After we moved, then it was me. Each time these things were fixed, there was another one ready to take it's place, but all along, the problem was in her head and that's the one that she couldn't run from.