PrintWho Are the Real Haters?
When Governor Gavin Newsom disappeared for a few weeks after receiving a COVID shot, the public worried: was he alive? His wife did not like this curiosity. You might think citizens have a right to know where their leaders are. Nope. She viewed the nosy public as haters.
Mrs. Newsom posted: "When someone cancels something, maybe they're just in the office working; maybe in their free time they're at home with their family, at their kids' sports matches, or dining out with their wife. Please stop hating and get a life."
Hating? Who was hating?
Note how this situation works. If you disagree with a liberal, in style or substance, you are therefore a hater. She reminds me of Hillary. Anybody who doesn't agree with her is a deplorable — i.e., someone who deserves to be hated.
To see this phenomenon metastasized times a thousand, look at the Southern Poverty Law Center. On its website, SPLC has a map of America with all "hate groups" boldly marked. Apparently, every small town in America has its own hate group, for a grand total of more than 1,000!
In fact, according to a reporter in Current Affairs, any cynicism you feel is justified: "The biggest problem with the hate map ... is that it's an outright fraud. I don't use that term casually. I mean, the whole thing is a willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC. The SPLC reported this year that the number of hate groups in the country is at a 'record high,' that it is the 'fourth straight year' of hate group growth."
I've looked at the map and found the one nearest to me, a commercial printer that likes to publish traditional Catholic authors such as G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Oh, that's what you mean by "haters"?
Isn't it interesting that we don't hear conservatives discussing hate, but liberals can't stop discussing hate? Apparently, when you're a secular humanist, there's nothing that gives so much pleasure as disdaining other humans.
It might also be a case of radicals following Saul Alinsky's every rule. Here's the big one: whatever crime you commit, accuse your enemies of doing that very thing. In practice, this permits endless denunciation of Trump, which seems to let progressives feel better about themselves.
We need some shrinks to explore this weirdness. Projection and transference are psychiatric concepts that explain how emotions can start in one spot and end up somewhere else. Children who hate their parents might redirect that hatred from the parents to some more convenient target — oh, you know, like a guy named Trump.
As happens so often, George Orwell understands the psychodynamics of every political gesture. The purpose behind the Two Minutes Hate, according to Wikipedia's article about 1984, is to "allow the citizens of Oceania to vent their existential anguish and personal hatreds towards politically expedient enemies. In re-directing the members' subconscious feelings away from the Party's government of Oceania, and towards non-existent external enemies, the Party minimizes thoughtcrime and the consequent, subversive behaviors of thoughtcriminals."
In other words, the totalitarian matrix requires hate. Perhaps that's why Progressives are hating all the time. This has practical implications. The Southern Poverty Law Center can raise big bucks all year by telling the same lies. Bogus witch hunts, such as the four-year inquiry into Trump's imaginary collusion with Russia, can be sustained. And throughout our society, inflated conspiracy theories can be recklessly promoted.
In K–12, I notice that our ed professors claim to care about children, country, and academic content. I believe they hate all three. When these people claim they'll make children into lifelong readers, you should worry that many kids will never read. If these people claim to be obsessed with making children learn STEM subjects, don't be surprised if arithmetic and general science are neglected, even though these are a necessary foundation for moving on to STEM. Unlike children a hundred years ago, children today are almost enfeebled: no reading, no writing, no geography, no history. Is that how you educate people you love?
Throughout our school system, there is tremendous emphasis on self-esteem, as though it is a cure for every problem. Of course, liberals say they want this only because it's good for the children. But in practice, children lose their bearings and become less worthy of esteem. Their opinion of themselves becomes overblown and unrealistic. People who have too much self-esteem may feel entitled to be so self-absorbed that they lose sight of others. If you love children, would you overburden them with excessive self-esteem? No, that's what you'll do if you hate them.
The problem of counterproductive theories runs through all the so-called liberal plans that Democrats push. Millions of people are on welfare. Are we doing them a favor? We know that LBJ saw welfare as a way to guarantee the black vote. If you love someone, you don't try to make him dependent. Again, this seems more like a case of Democrats proudly using people they may unconsciously disdain.
In the last year, we've seen Biden embrace one goofy approach after another. He stopped a pipeline and thereby took several thousand dollars a year out of almost every household budget. He abandoned our soldiers and friends in Afghanistan. How much do you have to hate the military to do that? He let Fauci kill thousands of people because he skillfully foreclosed the use of therapeutics such as hydroxychloroquine. Fauci and gang seem to be obsessed with selling vaccines, which are not even vaccines. Dr. Vladimir Zelenko said from the beginning that there was no need for anyone to die. If you have not heard that perspective before, you can blame it on the love that our media have for every one of us.
I think we see a spiritual emptiness on the left that allows leftists to criticize haters even as they are the superior haters.
Bruce Deitrick Price is the author of Saving K–12 (book) and Let's Fix Education (podcast). His next novel is Frankie, a unique mystery inspired by advances in A.I. For more info, visit Frankie.zone.
