Monday Musings: Dancing With Hate And Fear

It is inauguration day and I am not thinking about ball gowns and Bibles.  It is all the hate and fear that is on my mind … the unadulterated hate and the completely irrational fear.  He’s a Marxist.  He’s a fascist.  He’s going to round us up into concentration camps after he takes our guns.  He’s destroying the Constitution.  He hates freedom.  He bought the election by buying minority votes.  He’s a Muslim.  He was born in Kenya.  He was born in Indonesia.  He is redistributing wealth.  He’s turning the country into Greece.  He’s out to destroy Catholicism.  He wants to take America away from God.  He faked the Sandy Hook shooting to get our guns.  Take a look at the comments to any article about today’s inauguration on just about any network and you will see hundreds of comments like these.  Hell, you’ll see half of them come out of the mouths of congressmen and congresswomen in the next few months.  It’s troubling that it’s all poppycock.  It’s disconcerting that no one bothers to throw out a shred of proof to support this shit.    It’s annoying that most of the people calling our President a fascist, socialist, Marxist, or Muslim have no idea what any of those things are.  It’s more annoying that these folks claim the Constitution and don’t seem to have the slightest idea what it is about.  The underlying racism is certainly oppressive to behold.  But none of it is as troubling to me as the hatred and meanness and abject fear that permeate all of it.  That people would take this much time to be this nasty and heartless is frightening.  Maybe it has always been this way.  Maybe the internet just allows us easier access to it.  Maybe it shouldn’t bother me at all.  But I can’t help but feeling that this hatred is more widespread, more separated from reason, more divorced from any understandable grievance, and seemingly more acceptable than ever before.  Nothing good can come of this sort of shit.  No problems are going to be solved by people who talk this way.  There is no historical justification for it either.  This rabid hatred is not based in the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere’s Ride, James Madison’s writings, the Constitution, or even Thomas Jefferson’s butt crack.  There is nothing uniquely American or the least bit inspiring or laudable in any of it.  It’s certainly there though.  Even today.  Even covered up by loads of pomp and circumstance.  And I think recognizing that … and recognizing all of it for the unprincipled nastiness that it is … is the first step in a much more important dance than anything that will take place today.