On hate and why you should embrace it now
While there’s no bottom to the shock of Donald Trump in the White House, his presidency has only confirmed what so many of us were certain of during his campaign: that he is nothing more than a shell of a man, and a spiteful, cruel, greedy, perverse, and despicable one at that. But yesterday, in the wake of Trump’s announcement regarding his decision, California governor Jerry Brown used a new term: “deviant.”
“[This is] an aroused citizenry in America, and aroused nations of the world who will not tolerate this kind of deviant [emphasis mine] behavior from the highest office in the land,” he told the LA Times.
While this usage generated a giant “yep” from me, it also got me thinking more about something that I’ve long felt about Trump but have been hesitant to write about — how his rise has familiarized me with hatred, really for the first time in my life.
Good liberals like me are brought up to hate hate. “Hate crimes” are the worst offense, and love is supposed to conquer all. But I’ve been very aware of how good, gentle souls I know have increasingly allowed themselves to hate Donald Trump and say so. There appeared to be collective hesitance to declare hatred (the mere word is so antithetical to everything we believe in, right?), but slowly but surely, progressives are becoming more comfortable with spitting it out. Indeed, I think Jerry Brown nailed it as well with the term “arousal,” implying as it does an awakening.
As “I hate him,” shows up in Facebook comments by more and more even-keeled individuals I know, I applaud every time, knowing how simultaneously hard and invigorating it is to type that statement. Those three words are not far from becoming a new normal, just like the tragic hatred of Muslims or Mexicans or any other minority, but there is a crucial difference: declaring that you hate all Muslims, African Americans, or Mexicans is very different from declaring that you hate Donald Trump. The former is a generalized, ill-informed, and ignorant reaction to skin color, country of origin, or religion, and is therefore illegitimate, while declaring that you hate Donald Trump is very specific and in reaction to an individual’s documented words and actions, which is perfectly legitimate.
For those of you who are still uncomfortable with the term “hate,” I urge you to think hard about Jerry Brown’s brilliant application of the term “deviant” to 45. The current U.S. president is not a man, he is a monster. So have at it: hate him like you hate other deviants, and remember that collective hatred of deviance is hard-wired for good reasons — because it maintains vital social norms. Hate 45 like you hate child molesters and people who abuse animals. Hate him like you and our forebears hated Hitler and Stalin. Hate him like you hated Saddam Hussein and any other engineer of evil you can think of. 45 is every bit the deviant Jeffrey Dahmer was. As of the debut of his proposed budget and yesterday’s performance in the Rose Garden regarding the Paris agreement, feel free to think of him as the Jeffrey Dahmer of geopolitics and hate him as such. He deserves every torpedo and splinter of hatred headed his way. Join hands and hate, and may our collective hate, not just outrage, take this deviant down, fast.
Some will object to this perspective. “Love trumps hate” and “then you’re no better than they are” and all of that. But fuck that. We progressives are cornered, and there is nothing to do at this point but hate this deviant, openly and without discretion, and channel that hate into stopping him. At this point, I’m owning my hatred — it’s the only way I can see to protect and advance love.
