The hate we all feel is a hate we struggle with, but for me, taking some solace in the Paradox of Tolerance helps. maybe not much, but a little bit.
While we may hate him as a person - and perhaps, nearly as equally - those who prop him up and support him and the cumulative pain they inflict (let's be real - he couldn't do any of this on his own - which, too, is a solace, because without the others, he's a small, insignificant, D-list celebrity) - what we really hate about him is the pain he causes others, the grifting and profiting on others, the preying on those who may be weaker or not be able to defend themselves, and so forth.
and while hate itself definitely begets hate, I'm not sure hating hate is completely unhealthy - we hate here for good reasons, because we're mortified at the actions of these people.
I also believe that hatred is helping us fight to preserve our country and our democracy - it may have taken longer than we had hoped, but we are seeing our elected leaders and our judges fighting to preserve our country, and part of their motivation, no doubt, is the same hate we all feel.
I am mourning the downfall of civilization. I don't mean that metaphorically. It's not one evil man. This is a system and a majority of voters who want this. We knew in advance. They gave us the playbook. Greece fell. The Roman Empire fell. Alexandria was burned. An Imam in the 11th century told Muslims that they couldn't learn new things and so progress that was the height of learning (algebra!) just stopped, and has never recovered. Our democracy is precious. Our freedom, education, liberty, and goodness were assumed as American birthrights. But we did not tend them. And they are sliding away. When he won again, I cried, hard, for hours because I knew we had chosen a country that will not be easier for our children. We cannot easily undo this. I'm not sure we can undo it at all. American history is filled with the powerless losing - such as the Trail of Tears. We have a federal holiday for Columbus Day, which was genocide on the Taino people. We aren't better than this, and we might not win - but we still fight, because goodness compells us.
I appreciate your perspective and share your fears. But I'm not at all ready to concede the downfall of civilization or the end of democracy at all. We have faster, better means of communication and organization than any of those ancient cultures. The country is not majority GOP (or even majority pro-fascism). We have incredibly strong foreign allies. The constitution can't be as easily amended as in modern democracies that fell. The world is swinging to left leadership again. And yes -- we still fight.
I certainly understand your experience of hate, compounded by hating your hate. I've been there.
What helped me through his first horrible term in office (which is paling in comparison to this one) was the Serenity Prayer. Every time somethin awful came up, I would ask myself whether I had any power to do anything about it. If so, I did, but usually I did not, so I would just drop it.
Another mental trick I use may or may not work for you is to ask myself if I would be having these terrible thoughts and feelings if it were not for being told about what was happening via the Internet or radio or people who have heard something and told me about it. (TV is not a problem because I stopped watching TV news long ago.) The answer was always that I would not even know who was in the presidency, much less what he was doing, if I just focused on my local, day-to-day life. And, day after day, my local, day-to-day life is just fine, so that is where I like to keep my focus as much as possible.
Yes, sometimes someone we know personally is directly affect by the DC chaos, like the daughter of good friends of ours who was fired by RFK. But those events are rare. And I will not buy into the idea that I should be tearing my hair out about all of the people I do not know personally whose lives have been hurt by the current administration, because what good would that do.
Back in the 1970s I read a book by Harry Browne called How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. He describes a great number of mental traps that can keep us from being free and feeling happy. Relevant here are the Utopia Trap (the idea that every social ill has to be corrected before you can be happy) and the Burning Issues Trap (the idea that you must participate in all social issues).
I do have friends who are in a perpetual state of outrage and who encourage me to feel the same way. I prefer to have serenity and sanity, which I think are prerequisites for being able to make a difference when I do have the opportunity to do something about the current sh*tshow.
I really appreciate your long and thoughtful comment. I think there is a big space between perpetually happy and perpetually outraged.
I want to know things going on in the world (though not 24/7) and I want to feel empathy because that makes me feel connected. I want to be able to help where I can, because that gives me purpose. And I want to find all the joys I can because that makes life worth living.
I think — as I have written a number of times here — I’m trying to find the balance.
Thank you so much for writing this! It encapsulates the way I’m feeling. What I’m really concerned about is how it trickles down to the society at large. I see my younger son saying hateful things for no reason because we have so normalized calling someone a loser. I know we can do better than this.
Thank you for this post. I backed off social media and watching the news after the inauguration because it was filling me with so much rage. I haven’t really known what to do with myself and all the swirling thoughts, and I know I’m not alone. I’ve never felt such disdain for another human being in my life, which is only made worse by the fact that so many people in our country think he’s great. UGH.
I have only watched live news once since the election and it’s because a big ship hit the Brooklyn Bridge in our neighborhood. You can still be in touch and not feel outraged 24/7.
Is there any comfort knowing your words resonate with so many of us? That you have written about a feeling (well, a learned behavior) that so many can say,”Yeah,me too.”? Maybe that’s the key to mitigating the hate-share it, write about it, and channel it. You do it all so well.
Thank you. ❤️ I wish I was thanking you for something besides acknowledging that we're all feeling the same awful thing -- but I have that if we channel it into something good, we'll get past it.
You're not alone. I have been feeling the same way! Thank you for helping me get a hold of some of those weird instances! I just thought my medicine wasn't working!
That's a rule that I have worked on incorporateing in my life. Because I am new to both my feelings and not blaming something for my feelings, I take longer to recognize my behavior.
I appreciate you helping me to see all that anger was me responding to a situation that my medicine has nothing to do with. I can control how I respond without blaming. Thank you for this learning experience!
I lived outside the US during Trump 1.0. And it was terrible but I had the luxury of being far away & caught up in the politics of where I was. Now I am up close and personal, as it were, and whoooheeeee is it bad. Stellar, world-class, prize-winning, gold-medal varsity letter earning baaaaaad. Every day, in the crowded field of "most despicable," someone forges to the front -- Kristi Noem by an eyelash! Karoline whasherface by a crucifix! KashP by one whirling eyeball! And then nooo its RFK by a worm-length...or maybe Stephen Miller, stealthily coming up the outside. I mean, it's a whole freaking Preakness of terrible. Many of whom are inept. Which makes it almost worse. But the cortisol rivers of rage that rush through me-- those are bad too. It is literally bad for our health. And I hate *that* too. What I wouldn't give to be oblivious. But: imagination is what we've got, because that leads to hope, and *that* is the engine that drives the work of resistance.
My thought that I have on repeat is "May every one of his days be worse than the day before". And considering how unhappy, jealous, furious, whiny etc. he is every single day, it must be working!
I will be honest, I’m so grateful to have children in this climate because they give me hope for the future. They are active, they are caring, they are focusing their energies in good places. In fact, we have a brand new voter as of last week!
I am totally with you on this. I know that it is really unhealthy to hate someone and all his minions that much. I really hate Stephen Miller and I really hate Elon Musk but there’s a whole bunch of them to hate!
I
do believe in karma I think this thing is gonna blow up and those guys are gonna be sorry
The hate we all feel is a hate we struggle with, but for me, taking some solace in the Paradox of Tolerance helps. maybe not much, but a little bit.
While we may hate him as a person - and perhaps, nearly as equally - those who prop him up and support him and the cumulative pain they inflict (let's be real - he couldn't do any of this on his own - which, too, is a solace, because without the others, he's a small, insignificant, D-list celebrity) - what we really hate about him is the pain he causes others, the grifting and profiting on others, the preying on those who may be weaker or not be able to defend themselves, and so forth.
and while hate itself definitely begets hate, I'm not sure hating hate is completely unhealthy - we hate here for good reasons, because we're mortified at the actions of these people.
I also believe that hatred is helping us fight to preserve our country and our democracy - it may have taken longer than we had hoped, but we are seeing our elected leaders and our judges fighting to preserve our country, and part of their motivation, no doubt, is the same hate we all feel.
Thank you so much, Tree, for this optimism grounded in reality. It might be exactly what a lot of us need to hear.
I am mourning the downfall of civilization. I don't mean that metaphorically. It's not one evil man. This is a system and a majority of voters who want this. We knew in advance. They gave us the playbook. Greece fell. The Roman Empire fell. Alexandria was burned. An Imam in the 11th century told Muslims that they couldn't learn new things and so progress that was the height of learning (algebra!) just stopped, and has never recovered. Our democracy is precious. Our freedom, education, liberty, and goodness were assumed as American birthrights. But we did not tend them. And they are sliding away. When he won again, I cried, hard, for hours because I knew we had chosen a country that will not be easier for our children. We cannot easily undo this. I'm not sure we can undo it at all. American history is filled with the powerless losing - such as the Trail of Tears. We have a federal holiday for Columbus Day, which was genocide on the Taino people. We aren't better than this, and we might not win - but we still fight, because goodness compells us.
I appreciate your perspective and share your fears. But I'm not at all ready to concede the downfall of civilization or the end of democracy at all. We have faster, better means of communication and organization than any of those ancient cultures. The country is not majority GOP (or even majority pro-fascism). We have incredibly strong foreign allies. The constitution can't be as easily amended as in modern democracies that fell. The world is swinging to left leadership again. And yes -- we still fight.
I certainly understand your experience of hate, compounded by hating your hate. I've been there.
What helped me through his first horrible term in office (which is paling in comparison to this one) was the Serenity Prayer. Every time somethin awful came up, I would ask myself whether I had any power to do anything about it. If so, I did, but usually I did not, so I would just drop it.
Another mental trick I use may or may not work for you is to ask myself if I would be having these terrible thoughts and feelings if it were not for being told about what was happening via the Internet or radio or people who have heard something and told me about it. (TV is not a problem because I stopped watching TV news long ago.) The answer was always that I would not even know who was in the presidency, much less what he was doing, if I just focused on my local, day-to-day life. And, day after day, my local, day-to-day life is just fine, so that is where I like to keep my focus as much as possible.
Yes, sometimes someone we know personally is directly affect by the DC chaos, like the daughter of good friends of ours who was fired by RFK. But those events are rare. And I will not buy into the idea that I should be tearing my hair out about all of the people I do not know personally whose lives have been hurt by the current administration, because what good would that do.
Back in the 1970s I read a book by Harry Browne called How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. He describes a great number of mental traps that can keep us from being free and feeling happy. Relevant here are the Utopia Trap (the idea that every social ill has to be corrected before you can be happy) and the Burning Issues Trap (the idea that you must participate in all social issues).
I do have friends who are in a perpetual state of outrage and who encourage me to feel the same way. I prefer to have serenity and sanity, which I think are prerequisites for being able to make a difference when I do have the opportunity to do something about the current sh*tshow.
I really appreciate your long and thoughtful comment. I think there is a big space between perpetually happy and perpetually outraged.
I want to know things going on in the world (though not 24/7) and I want to feel empathy because that makes me feel connected. I want to be able to help where I can, because that gives me purpose. And I want to find all the joys I can because that makes life worth living.
I think — as I have written a number of times here — I’m trying to find the balance.
Thank you so much for writing this! It encapsulates the way I’m feeling. What I’m really concerned about is how it trickles down to the society at large. I see my younger son saying hateful things for no reason because we have so normalized calling someone a loser. I know we can do better than this.
I could not agree more.
Thank you for this post. I backed off social media and watching the news after the inauguration because it was filling me with so much rage. I haven’t really known what to do with myself and all the swirling thoughts, and I know I’m not alone. I’ve never felt such disdain for another human being in my life, which is only made worse by the fact that so many people in our country think he’s great. UGH.
I have only watched live news once since the election and it’s because a big ship hit the Brooklyn Bridge in our neighborhood. You can still be in touch and not feel outraged 24/7.
Is there any comfort knowing your words resonate with so many of us? That you have written about a feeling (well, a learned behavior) that so many can say,”Yeah,me too.”? Maybe that’s the key to mitigating the hate-share it, write about it, and channel it. You do it all so well.
Thank you. ❤️ I wish I was thanking you for something besides acknowledging that we're all feeling the same awful thing -- but I have that if we channel it into something good, we'll get past it.
🕊️
You're not alone. I have been feeling the same way! Thank you for helping me get a hold of some of those weird instances! I just thought my medicine wasn't working!
I have a rule never to blame legitimate feelings on medicines or menstruation. 🙃
That's a rule that I have worked on incorporateing in my life. Because I am new to both my feelings and not blaming something for my feelings, I take longer to recognize my behavior.
I appreciate you helping me to see all that anger was me responding to a situation that my medicine has nothing to do with. I can control how I respond without blaming. Thank you for this learning experience!
I lived outside the US during Trump 1.0. And it was terrible but I had the luxury of being far away & caught up in the politics of where I was. Now I am up close and personal, as it were, and whoooheeeee is it bad. Stellar, world-class, prize-winning, gold-medal varsity letter earning baaaaaad. Every day, in the crowded field of "most despicable," someone forges to the front -- Kristi Noem by an eyelash! Karoline whasherface by a crucifix! KashP by one whirling eyeball! And then nooo its RFK by a worm-length...or maybe Stephen Miller, stealthily coming up the outside. I mean, it's a whole freaking Preakness of terrible. Many of whom are inept. Which makes it almost worse. But the cortisol rivers of rage that rush through me-- those are bad too. It is literally bad for our health. And I hate *that* too. What I wouldn't give to be oblivious. But: imagination is what we've got, because that leads to hope, and *that* is the engine that drives the work of resistance.
Thanks for making me laugh! That plus the hope does a lot of good.
My thought that I have on repeat is "May every one of his days be worse than the day before". And considering how unhappy, jealous, furious, whiny etc. he is every single day, it must be working!
Amen!
This song has been stuck in my head for the last 8-10 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H13PQgcejqI
Haunting and as relevant then just as much or even more then it is today.
Oof
Same.
And I’m glad I don’t have a child to bring up in this current climate. It was bad enough that I was a school teacher with youngsters for 25 years.
I will be honest, I’m so grateful to have children in this climate because they give me hope for the future. They are active, they are caring, they are focusing their energies in good places. In fact, we have a brand new voter as of last week!
Mostly concerned about the babies and their health and their education or lack of
Valid. Especially depending where you live, which is absolutely shameful.
I am totally with you on this. I know that it is really unhealthy to hate someone and all his minions that much. I really hate Stephen Miller and I really hate Elon Musk but there’s a whole bunch of them to hate!
I
do believe in karma I think this thing is gonna blow up and those guys are gonna be sorry
Looking forward to the days of justice.