In George Orwell’s novel 1984, society was afforded an approved time to hate. To be more specific, there was an allocation of two minutes each day to hate Emanuel Goldstein and his followers. Is there such a thing as limited hatred with manners?
In the novel, according to Oceana, Goldstein is the enemy of the state and the head of the Brotherhood. It’s uncertain if Goldstein is even real, and some conjecture he is the fictitious propaganda minister.
As a practical measure, Orwell tells us the general masses were allowed a daily two-minute Hate, during which Party members of the society of Oceania watch a film depicting the Party’s enemies. During the time of hate, and only during this time, society was allowed to freely express their hatred for Goldstein and company.
Our National and Institutional Hate
This is 2019, not a fictitious 1984. This is real, not a book. Hating and learning to hate in America are not restricted to 2-minute daily intervals. In the case of President Donald Trump, the period of hate has now extended to nearly three years. It’s likely the collective venomous disdain for Donald J. Trump will remain unabated.
The loathing, besmirching, accusations, and distortions are reaching a fevered pitch. Any criticism of the left spawns accusations of racism, hatred, and bigotry. Trump’s recent criticism of the conditions in the City of Baltimore and its misguided congressional leadership has been met with volcanic eruptions from the media and the so-called Reverend Al Sharpton.
The media is at the forefront of the nation’s period of hate. The left is the DNC’s propaganda minister, generating talking points designed to label Trump and anyone else who dares critique Democrat policy a racist. The liberal media explodes round-the-clock, like a volcano spewing its hot molten lava into the political atmosphere.
While not alone, the primary haters of President Donald J. Trump are CNN and MSNBC, each with a cast of anchors and reporters who spare no evil hatred when assaulting the President. Mind you, they are not just detractors; they are radicalized, arch-enemies of the administration and all who dare associate with it.
Liberal hatred is second only to the media’s hatred. Liberal hatred is institutional and systemic, pouring forth from elites and students in our colleges and universities. Our institutions of higher learning are castles filled with young impressionable vessels who have been groomed and tutored to hate.
The liberal education complex has become the monolithic re-education camp of the socialist left. The Department of Education, its teachers’ unions, and its left-leaning curriculum has become another arm of the Democratic Party. Indoctrinating young minds in the sacred orthodoxy of socialism is now clearly a part of the public education matrix. The left controls the education apparatus, its textbooks, secular messaging, and political script.
America’s children are being taught to hate, and that hating is acceptable and normal. We’re losing our hatred of hate.
Our Normalization of Political Hate
Even within the GOP establishment, there is a simmering hatred of Donald Trump. “Never Trumpers,” as they are known, are the residual hordes left behind when the Trump Train left the station. These are the former self-appointed watch-guards of the GOP. Castle guards, lieutenants, think-tank controllers, and a myriad of political architects who shape the story and select the people who run our Orwellian government.
These Trump-haters are the players, donors, fundraisers, insiders, talking heads, and opinion writers who have always made their way and their money controlling the message, the party apparatus, its platform, and of course, the approved candidates, those in line for the highest and most powerful positions in government.
Trump-haters are the backchannel boys and girls who position themselves as the moral voice for the GOP. There is little tolerance for those who might dare to deviate from the script. Thus, there is no tolerance for the 45th president, nor his national band of reckless “deplorables.”
While the president continues to disrupt political norms, there is a kind of panic among the out-of-work, unappreciated hordes of languishing, self-appointed insiders and consultants.
Every minute, hour, day, week, month and year since the inauguration of Donald Trump, we have seen the ever-increasing, deafening crescendo of media, liberal, and inner-party hatred. It’s getting louder. It’s getting edgier, sharper, more biting in its tone. It’s becoming irrationally partisan, to the point of incivility.
Firebomb accusations of lies, bigotry, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and sexism are the norm. There are no exceptions. The destructive nature of hatred is eroding our national civility, communication and, I dare say, even our national interests and security. An example of this is the abandonment of American sovereignty, evidenced by open border advocacy and the plethora of sanctuary cities, counties, and states. Hate is breeding reckless lawlessness.
Civility is hated. Patriotism is hated. Law is hated. Police are hated. <em>America</em> is hated.
Any discussion of America’s uniqueness, culture, heritage, language and constitutional rule of law is met with cries of “racist” and “fascist.” It’s unacceptable to critique the most obvious policy failures without being branded a race-baiter.
It has been nearly three years of non-stop hate. I wonder how much more can we endure. I wonder, is there a solution, a way out of our hate?
Curing Haters and Hatred
It would be a welcomed respite if we could limit ourselves to Orwell’s daily two-minute hatred model. Sadly, such is not the case.
Lapsing into hate is easier than curing hate. Oddly, our baser instincts allow us to degenerate into hated with ease. Once there, hate left to fester unchecked breeds new mutations of hatred. As the tentacles of hatred find their way into the fabric of our American life and politics, the grip of hate becomes seemingly insurmountable.
Like the Boa, hate kills by restricting airflow until its victims are terminated by suffocation. America is gasping for air, as the snake of hate continues to slowly squeeze the remaining life from us.
The cure for our degeneration into the darkness of hate is nowhere in sight. As the debt mounts, the government grows, and the southern invasion continues unabated, we all sense that it might get a whole lot uglier before we see any cure for hate, any real harmony.
I often wonder, what will it take to shake us back into a state of harmony? National tragedy? An economic meltdown? Another 9/11? Anarchy in the streets? Societal collapse? Something so horrific, it breaks the pride that fuels our hate, humbling the nation?
Hatred is not new to our generation. We did not invent hatred. Hatred is something within us. Hatred is self-righteousness which, if loosed from its moral underpinnings and allowed to run its course, will mushroom until it cannot be tamed without catastrophic measures.
Orwell did not invent the idea behind his “two minutes of hate.” The notion of short bursts of hate was already in use in the First World War. At that time, British writers aptly satirized the German campaign of hatred against the English by imagining a Prussian family sitting around the kitchen table having its “morning hate.” The daily artillery bombardments made by either side during WWI were intended to disrupt enemy routines and were known as “hates.”
In America, we have protracted hate. Once a festering scratch, our hate has become a gaping wound, bleeding us of our sensibility, tearing down the last remnants of decency, leaving us defenseless. We’ve become senseless and witless, unable to work with one another to solve problems…it’s easier to hate…we want to hate…hate is preferred.
A thinking people should occasionally be at odds over the solutions to the large issues of national life. Differing opinions should give rise to banter and even a bit of bluster as we work through problem-solving.
Our venomous hatred is stretching our collective sensibilities, stripping away what little unity remains, leaving us vulnerable to our worst and most base instincts.
Love is what causes us to slow, to listen, and to care about the well-being of others, while hate is the most brutal instigator of the very worst of what and who we are, allowing our animal instincts to become somehow, oddly, normalized.
We know hate is not normal. We know hate is wrong. We know hate, left to itself, will destroy us.
How many more years of hate must we–can we–endure?
If you're happy with BIG Government, then ignore this!
Good Choice...Let's Get Rid of Big Government