“To the last, I grapple with thee;
From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee;
For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

 

 

It’s one thing to plaster your FaceBook wall with lofty inspirational quotes, and quite another to actually live your life by them. How often have we seen the admonition of Martin Luther King Jr. that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”? Yet despite the imploring of Dr. King, the “resistance” to the Trump administration resembles less the teachings of Ghandi as it does the wrath of Khan.

When the concept for this post first came to me I envisioned the self destructive animus of the left with an image of the insanity of Captain Ahab; and so the great whale, naturally, had to be Trump. Upon further consideration though, I saw that the whale was something bigger than the President. The hatred and anger I see is not for Trump alone, neither did it begin with Trump. Consider the treatment in Congress and on the internet for such people as Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson, Mike Pence, or Jeff Sessions. Trump’s personality makes him easy to hate, but do we really believe that a President Cruz, Huckabee or Fiorina would have been treated more gently? Possibly a more moderate candidate (as long as his name wasn’t Bush) would have been given a slight reprieve, had they been spineless enough to appease the Progressive gods, but any candidate that took a stand to reverse the disasters of the last eight years would have fit the bill as Ahab’s nemesis. The enemy of the left is the right. The great white whale is not Trump himself, but the people and the ideas he represents. Trump only personifies it. The hatred is broad in scope, and cancerous, not restricted to Trump but extended to his cabinet, his wife, his children, his children’s clothing, the stores that sell his children’s clothing, the people who shop at the stores that sell his children’s clothing, the people who don’t reject the people that shop at the stores that sell his children’s clothing…

Haters are always part of the equation when it comes to society, particularly in politics, and I have previously warned against too quickly judging whole groups by the worst segments of that group; but it is troubling when reasoned and measured voices from the left are the exception, the embattled remnant; and when those most disturbing in their level of rage and hatred include friends and family. Aggression is a motivator, and is self-reinforcing. It activates chemicals in our brain in much the same way as sex or drugs. Lab animals exposed to aggression with other subjects, become “addicted” to it, and will actually unnecessarily invite more conflict. Likewise, it is not unusual to find people who thrive on conflict. Men who enjoy a brawl as much as a woman, trolls on social media who enjoy crude insults more than sharing opinions and ideas, demonstrators who derive more pleasure from violently silencing their opponents than reasonably refuting their ideas. It stems from a biological imperative to survive, and to insure survival through aggression. We’re kind of hard-wired that way. Morality, humanity, and civil society are higher constructs that we employ to channel our aggression into less destructive directions; hence we try to follow the law of the land instead of the law of the jungle. When we permit those motivated by their baser instincts to set the course for our interactions with each other, and these are not always stupid people, then, as with any addiction, it will consume us until all that is left is our hatred and rage.

Much has been made lately of the attempt of the left’s resistance movement to mimic the success of the Tea Party, by becoming what has been termed “The Reverse Tea Party”. Unfortunately, the Reverse Tea Party resembles the Tea Party about as much as the Antichrist resembles Christ. Whereas the Tea Party intentionally avoided social issues in order to be more inclusive and focused on Constitutional issues, the resistance of the left is animated and driven almost exclusively by social issues. The strategy of descending on town hall meetings for Tea Party faithful was to engage representatives and call them to account; the “new” strategy of the left seems more in keeping with their tired tactic of shutting people down. The 9/12 project, the Tea Party group that marched on Washington at the height of the movement had in its mission statement a focus on “building and uniting our communities”, not being “obsessed with political parties, the color of your skin, or what religion you practice”. Despite the propaganda you may have heard, the group stressed inclusion, unity, forgiveness and liberty devoid of hatred for leaders or fellow citizens, and the demonstrators were almost universally of the same mind. There was protest, but no violence. There was anger, but not rage. I know; I was there. The Reverse Tea Party group, “Indivisible”, begins its introduction by calling Donald Trump a loser, racist, an authoritarian and a tyrant. The first requirement for inclusion with this group is that chapters resist Trump’s agenda and embrace progressive values, all others are presumably excluded. There is a false assumption that the tactics of peace can be used for war, or that the success of virtue is in strategy, instead of virtue itself.

It seems an odd strategy, and I use the term loosely, to attempt to punish a man with that which he seems to enjoy most. To use conflict as a weapon against a man who has mastered the art, who actually seems to like it and be undeterred when he loses, is reminiscent of Brer Rabbit’s plea not to be thrown into the briar patch. Just by virtue of the unending, unreasoning, often petty, hatred unrelentingly being leveled at Trump, this singularly unliked President is garnering sympathy from independent voters. Regardless, a man who seems to enjoy being hated almost as much as he enjoys being loved, for whom a failure to be reelected would mean having to go back to his billionaire lifestyle and empire, Trump himself is untouched by most of the vitriol aimed at him. His agenda can possibly be slowed, but this shotgun approach of hating all things Trump is already becoming tedious, and likely to result in even more mid term losses for Democrats who are already vulnerable. Rage is intoxicating for its possessor, but repugnant to observers. The protestors see themselves as heroes in their resistance, but come off as the obscure superhero, Mr. Furious, from the movie Mystery Men, whose dubious superpower was excessive anger. (see here if you’re unfamiliar) Rage is actually not a superpower, and rageaholics are not heroes.  Anger can be a motivator for the base, but we will have several months to witness the lawlessness and outrageously unfocused behavior of the protestors. Anger can be contagious, and while the left take to the streets to express theirs, the right takes to the polls. It will likely require the next next election for either side to alter course. My money is on the whale.

 

 

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