I can understand why millions of people don’t like Donald Trump. 

After all, he has many traits of personality and moral character that are easy to dislike.  I too dislike him — even though I voted for him in 2020 and will very probably vote for him again in 2024.

I can even understand why many people dislike him so much that, despite the fact that they can name nothing they object to in the policies he followed when he was president, they didn’t vote for him in 2020 and wouldn’t dream of voting for him in 2024.  Something about his person they find so obnoxious that they cannot be bothered to examine his policies.

What I cannot understand, however, despite having tried hard to achieve such an understanding, is why many people, probably millions, go so far in their dislike of Trump that they actually HATE him.  They hate him as if he is the incarnation of pure evil.  Now, I could understand this hatred if he had personally poisoned their dogs or at least stolen lollipops from their little children.  But he hasn’t done this.

If you ask these Trump-haters what he has done to merit their great hatred, they will answer, not with something he has actually done, but with things he is going to do if elected president again. 

He is going to do away with American democracy, they will tell you.  He is going to throw his political critics in jail.  He is going to make himself a dictator.  In other words, he is guilty of truly horrible crimes — crimes he hasn’t yet committed.

This is awfully far-fetched, but most Trump-haters seem actually to believe it — although some, e.g., certain cynical talking heads on T.V., only pretend to believe it.

You don’t have to be a professional psychiatrist to see that the genuine haters don’t hate him because of the bad things they fear he will do.  No, it’s the other way around.  They fear he will do these things because they hate him.  The hatred comes first.

It’s like the little boy who has a hard time sleeping at night because of his fear of the monster who hides in his closet.  The monster doesn’t cause his fear.  His fear causes the monster.

The Trump-monster is a really scary being created by their Trump-hatred.  They have convinced themselves that Trump is something very like Hitler, and that his fans are something like Nazi brownshirts, and that in fighting to defeat Trump they are fighting a last-ditch battle to save America, not to mention Western civilization.

Once you convince yourself that Trump is like Hitler, certain other things follow.

1. Trump is a racist — for Hitler was a racist.

2. Trump hates Jews — for Hitler hated Jews.

3. Trump plans to abolish democracy — for that’s what Hitler did.

4. Trump plans to establish a police state — for that’s what Hitler did.

I’m surprised that the Trump-haters have not accused him, at least not so far, of being in a great fan of Wagner’s music.  If he is elected, they may soon be telling us, Trump will make “The Flight of the Valkyries” our new national anthem.

What further follows, once you decide that Trump is like Hitler, is that almost any means, no matter how dirty, are justified in stopping him.  You can, for example, mislabel a riot as an “insurrection” and blame it on Trump.  Or you can create a Congressional kangaroo court (the January 6 committee) to “investigate” the “insurrection.”  Or you can bring civil and criminal actions against him in jurisdictions made up overwhelmingly of anti-Trump voters, where it will be almost impossible to get an impartial jury.  Or you can fine him about $400 million for committing a “fraud” that did nobody any harm.  Or you can keep him tied up in a variety of courts in order to hinder his ability to campaign. 

Is there any limit to these dirty tricks?  What will they think of next?

I can observe and, at least to a degree, describe the strange effects of Trump-hatred.  But as I said near the beginning of this comment, I am unable to understand it.  What is it that drives so many people to hate Trump with a hatred vastly disproportionate to any evil he has done or is likely to do?  What has driven them mad?

It’s a mystery — at least it is to me.

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