Hatred and Anger

"Mantis shrimps throw punches like humans throw opinions- frequently, aggressively, and without provocation."

-Ed Yong, An Immense World

On the October 6 edition of Pod Save America, Maggie Haberman makes the case that Tangerine Palpatine believes that hatred is a civic virtue. She tells the story of when five innocent Black men were arrested for a rape in New York City.

Ed Koch, mayor of NYC at the time, asked for calm and for people to not hate the accused. Orange Julius Caesar instead claimed that hatred of them was good, and took out a full-page ad calling for them to be killed. (A position he still holds, after they were shown to be innocent.) 

Outside of turning the Supreme Court over to Christian Nationalists, I think the worst thing the former Commander in Thief did was normalize and encourage hatred and violence. Accepted by 90+% of elected Republicans, and fanned by Faux News.

I see this anger and "fuck you" attitude here in Tucson. More people trick out their cars and trucks to be super-loud and roll coal. People driving 60+ miles per hour in 35 zones, blowing through stoplights well after it has turned red. 

And many below-average while men (and by definition, half are below average) are convinced their lack of success is due to the woke mob's affirmative action, leading them to hate even more.

Many of them hate their fellow Americans so much that they side with Putin.

I have no prescription. As I talk about in Losing My Religions, this all started when Gingrich decided to make politics about war and not ideas. And it will only get worse while so many on the left want politics to be about their desires and not about winning.

Song to change the mood: Paul McCartney "New"

May 4, 1970, Kent State. Details in Losing.