A NATION PULLED LOW BY HATRED OF MR TRUMP

“Let no man pull you down so low as to hate him.”  Martin Luther King jr. 

“In time we hate that which we fear.” W. Shakespeare,  Antony and Cleopatra,

“Me hate Donald Trump?  I don’t hate anyone!!  I’m a Catholic. Don’t mess with me.,,,,  I wasn’t raised that way.” US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (2020)  

I can not say that I have watched the on-going Impeachment Trial of President Donald Trump much.  It is all too repetitive and boring.  But what I have seen so far has revealed  much more about the politicians  who are prosecuting the case,  than the alleged “crimes” of Mr. Trump.  The Democrat  prosecutors in the Senate (as well as in many others in general) are so consumed by virulent hatred of President Trump that they often seem to have left logic, reason, mental stability behind.  They appear controlled by primitive survival emotions rather than higher levels of thought.  What is the origin of this hatred that has so consumed our nation ? 

Aristotle the 3^rd Century BC Greek philosopher  and organizer of ancient knowledge, (see: Wikipedia) described hatred as distinct from anger and rage.  He categorized it as an emotion that generated a powerful desire to annihilate the hated object.  Furthermore, he viewed it as an incurable condition. 

Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis described  hatred as a mental state that directs the individual to destroy the source of its unhappiness. He hypothesized  that hatred may have evolved in early hominids as one of the means of self-preservation . 

In a Scientific American article, entitled: “the Origin of Hate” (2009), neuroscientists at University College, London report on a 2008 brain scan study of 17 adults.  The results suggest the existence of what the authors term: a brain  “hate circuit”, i.e.  structures within the brain activated by hate. They scanned the brains of individuals as these subjects  gazed at images of persons they professed to hate.  (The “hate” circuitry seems to connect the putamen at the base of the forebrain, the medial sulcus and a part of the frontal cortex. ) The research suggests that the “hate circuit” is involved in initiating aggressive behaviors.  Though, the  authors note that,  anger, danger and fear, as well as aggression itself have different circuit patterns than the hate circuit 

In an article entitled: “Why We Hate” (Sage Journal, Emotion Review (2018) : psychologists  A Fischer, E. Halperin et al  state: “We hate persons or groups more because of who they are than what they do. Hate has the goal of eliminating the target. When shared with group members hate can spread fast....Hate can be reassuring and self-protective, because its message is simple and helps confirm peoples’s belief in a just world”   Interestingly most subject simply deny that they experience hate.  The authors document the strong social inappropriateness of hate and the fact that when interviewed most people will flatly deny that they have ever experienced “hate”. Yet when given specific  examples of conflict or sources of anger they clearly reveal thoughts or actions that were clearly explained by hatred. 

The Impeachment and trial of President Trump is in effect the result of hatred of the man as a person, not for his policies.  He is not a politician but in 2016 he defeated “the most exquisitely prepared candidate” in our nation’s history MsClinton who was supported  by all the power structures of the political system and even outspent Trump almost two to one, Yet this brash, unsophisticated novice politician brought her down in an embarrassing defeat. He is hated for that. He is a businessman who has gained a position well out of the “acceptable” “ tribal” sphere of politicians .  He is an  interloper feared in the same way that male heterosexuals fear ( and hate) the homosexual, or how ancient Christians feared and hated the Jew, or how Jews fear Palestinians as potential threats to their state—and vice versa ,  The Democrats fear Trump—and that fear has grown into all consuming hate that has infected the Democrat Party and those elements which support it such as the main stream media. 

Thus it is fear and  hatred which brought our nation and it’s polity to a sad and dangerous impasse.   As Rev. Martin Luther King so eloquently warned how hate diminishes us but too many have succumbed to its evil effects.  Our nation is being pulled down by hatred. 

One wonders is the all so obvious hatred of Mr Trump by Democrats a form of  prosecutable “hate crime”?