Quote of the Day - Hate

The reality is, they have no vision, no policy. They have nothing to sell but hate, and Americans are not buying it. – Greg Abbott

Abbott, whatever you think about him, is right on both counts. Democrats have nothing to sell but hate and Americans are not buying hate. Why do Americans not buy hate? Pretty much because Americans are into winners, not losers, and hate is for losers.

I am talking about real, visceral hate. Not dislike or disapproval, but active hate. Generally, when people talk about hate, they mean dislike. If someone says they hate broccoli, they usually mean they dislike it and do not want to eat it. They see broccoli, say they hate it, leave it on their plate, and forget about it. They do not obsess over broccoli, keeping their hatred for it burning in their minds 24/7.

Real hate is an active emotion, one whose energy consumes those engaging in it. It is the type of thing that leads individuals to obsess over the object of their hatred. Eventually, if kept up long enough, it consumes the hater. We have seen it here among some Never-Trumpers. It leads to compulsive behavior, like daily anti-Trump screeds over trivial (and occasionally nonexistent) failings puffed up to DefCon 1 status. It is an energy sink. Worse, it is tedious and boring. Everyone else either tunes it out or points and laughs.

The energy wasted on hate is a major reason Christianity stresses forgiveness. You cannot simultaneously hate and forgive. Forgiveness requires you to put the hate behind you. It frees that energy for use elsewhere. It was why Jesus told us to love our enemies. You may dislike what those you love do, but you do not expend effort hating them.

How destructive is hate? Look at Gaza. The inhabitants have a piece of territory they could turn into a resort that Monaco could envy. They could be rich, peaceful, and healthy, the jewel of the Middle East. Instead, they pour all their resources into destroying their hated neighbor, Israel. As a result, their home is an impoverished rubble heap.

Americans almost instinctively know hatred is bad. Not that we are not capable of it: Look at the Hatfields and McCoys or the Sutton-Taylor feud in Texas. On a larger scale, the whole Lost Cause movement was a product of post-Civil War Confederate hatred of the North. But each of those was extremely destructive to the perpetrators. Hatred consumed the feuding families and left the South well behind the rest of the United States. The South did not rise to the prominence it now holds in the US economy until it was willing to put the hatreds engendered by the Civil War behind it. Nowadays a small Southern town is a far more tolerant place than a Northern university town.

Yet hate is what the Democrats are selling, and what America is rejecting. Hope is what Americans want. Whether you like Trump or dislike him, hope is what Trump is selling, not hate. He cannot be defeated by hating him, only by selling a superior version of hope.