The last hurrah of hate?
Sometimes societies must suffer to progress. Reculer pour mieux sauter. They have to witness and experience things to understand the cause and consequences of events and their citizens’ personal choices. These experiences in turn spur a realization, sometimes epiphanic, that results in the rejection of previous thinking and a commitment to reform and transformation. Perhaps Donald Trump’s presidency is one such moment, acting as a catalyst for fundamental sociopolitical change.
Importantly, it is not the administration’s dysfunction and its damaging policies that have caused this transformation; whether through calamitous trade wars; the withering and sudden decline of the United States’ standing and reputation in the world (making America substantially weaker not greater); or even the appalling mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis. Ultimately, these are nothing more than regular politics, however shocking and however much they expose unprecedented levels of charlatanism, hollow rhetoric, and gullible voters. Rather, the cause of this putative sociopolitical recalibration is based not on the policies of Trump’s presidency but its very nature. It is an administration (and very much a continuing campaign) based on hate, bullying, and a quest for domination, whereby, for example, women, people of color, the educated, the ‘experts’, the handicapped, the immigrant, dissenting voices, other countries, the marginalized, and political opponents, are ruthlessly targeted, vilified, and slandered, often personally. There is a level of viciousness, spite, and malignancy in Trump’s presidency that is beyond anything seen before in a modern democracy.
In many ways, Trump’s political rallies are the exemplification of this development. Not just in the cheap gimmickry (red hats and Stars and Stripes outfits complementing the crassness of Trump’s rhetoric) but more in the rabid loathing and rage that underpin its core character. Grown men and women, even children, cheering and screaming not for anything positive or inspirational but out of hate, anger, and whipped-up, manipulated frenzy. Rage, insult, blame…. Rage, insult, blame. Repeat. The Two Minutes Hate in George Orwell’s 1984 never seemed so prescient, epitomizing not only these political gatherings but Trump’s presidency more broadly.
A political movement predicated solely on blame and hate might make for good electioneering — appealing to those who themselves harbor anger, resentment, envy, and ill-will towards others — but it does not make for good governance, leadership, or policy. It certainly recalls Abraham Maslow’s observation that if the only tool you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. Indeed, any value-less and hate-fueled government will inevitably cause nothing but damage and chaos. One need only glance at the current state of the United States, both domestically and in its foreign relations, to acknowledge the obvious result of this manifesto of hate. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Nevertheless, in the shadow of #MeToo; the hostility towards migrants; an oppressed and embattled LGBTQ community; a staggering and growing death toll from Covid-19 (because to follow the advice of experts in the field is to be brainwashed); and a Black Lives Matter movement, resurgent and inspired following the death of George Floyd (and in which police brutality is, in Trump’s case, easily correlated with political brutality); it seems that the United States has (finally) awoken to the fact that hate, bullying, and domination are to be condemned and rejected. Silence, inertia, and indifference are no longer acceptable responses.
It is this re-emergence of a moral and compassionate dimension of America’s political and cultural discourses that might just mark the beginning of a new era. There is now a palpable sense that injustice, insult, inequality, and a complete absence of compassion and kindness have no place in contemporary society. A modern country, a modern culture, if it is to thrive, must embrace goodness and kindness, and have a moral foundation. We have to care, and we have to care about others. We must treat others how we ourselves wish to be treated.
Although rather amorphous and admittedly hard to measure, perhaps goodness rather than GDP or military power should become the new yardstick by which we gauge the success of communities, cultures, and countries. And anything or anyone that rejects or denies such goodness must be identified, challenged, and defeated. The pulling down of statues could well represent the start of a moral revolution in which justice and decency finally take their rightful place as the starting points, the sine qua nons, and cornerstones of every society.
