I’ve resisted hate. At least I’ve tried to resist hate. I told myself that hate is a pointless, futile emotion, that it only gets in the way, that it warps the process of thought, that it clouds judgment and leads to bad decisions. I’ve told myself that hate harms the hater more than the hated.
I still think that’s true. But I don’t care anymore.
It was difficult at first, but I came to accept the fact that I hated Donald Trump. I don’t need to list all the reasons for hating him — you’re probably aware of them, they’ve been pretty clear for most of his life. But man I resisted admitting to myself that I hated him. Actually hated him. I still hate him, of course. Hate is fucking hard to turn off. But that doesn’t matter, because I have no desire to stop hating Trump.
One of the problems with hate is that once you get the hang of it, it’s easy. It gets harder to resist. Trump taught me to hate. Today I hate Republicans. Right now, as I sit here and type this, I hate Republicans. Not just the Republicans who’ve voted in ways I disagree with, not just Republicans who hold public office at any level, not just the Republican Party — right now, this moment, I hate every person who voted for any Republican in the last five years, Make it ten years. I don’t think this hate will be as persistent as my hatred for Trump; I suspect this generalized hatred will subside over time. But right now, at this particularly painful point in time, I hate them.
They’re all complicit, every Republican, every one of them. The epidemic of gun violence in the US, that’s on Republicans. The erosion of civil rights and liberties, that’s on Republicans. The rise in hate crime against Asians, Jews, Women, Black people, trans people, Muslims, gay folks — that’s on Republicans. The rise of asshole billionaires, that’s on Republicans. The health care desert that so many people live in, that’s on Republicans. The collapse of representative democracy, that’s on Republicans and I fucking hate them for it.
I’ve learned to hate. I’m ashamed of it, but there it is. I’ve become a hater. I hate that they’ve taught me to hate. I feel diminished by that hate; I feel tainted because of it. I hate, but I’m still resisting being hateful. It’s bad enough to hate, to act on that hate…at that point, you’re probably lost. I know it’s possible to come back from that, but it wouldn’t be easy.
Working to defeat Republicans, however, isn’t hateful. It’s just necessary. If your foot becomes infected and gangrene sets it, you don’t amputate your foot because you hate it. You do it because it’s necessary for survival. Republicans are political gangrene; they are necrotic tissue on the body of representative democracy.
That’s where I am now. Right now. Today. I hate Republicans. But that’s not the reason I want them removed from political power and authority; I want them removed because that’s the only way to salvage democracy in the United States.
gregfallis.com 
I understand how you feel. I had to let that hate go because it was destroying me. My feelings haven’t changed, but I no longer let them consume me. I’ll never stop resisting, but I won’t sacrifice my health to hate.
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I think hate CAN destroy a person, though I don’t think I’m at risk of that. My current hatred won’t overpower my morality or my ethics; it’s not that sort of set-fire-to-the-heretics sort of hate. I don’t feel anything like the need to destroy what I hate. Just work to limit their access to power, to remove them from power, to undo what they’d done
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I have to keep reminding myself that the pendulum has swung- again. It happens. I hate it, but if I act on it, it will be harder to recover from and challenging to stay focused.
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The inevitable reversal of things is, in my opinion, a solid reason not to accept the pendulum model.
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Well I do hate trump and always will, plus a few in The Republican Party…but the ones you left out are the ones that still despite , the hearings, the evidence, the danger that is upon us, still support him almost like he is a god. The utter ignorance, I hate most of all because it will destroy everything.
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Oh, I think I covered those folks as well.
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On the healthcare problem in the US, it is, sadly, not only on Republicans. I hold virtually every single politician in the US is responsible for the current state of this atrocity, although some make the problem worse than others.There’s a reason that maternal and infant mortality is worst in deeply red states, and that falls squarely on Republicans.
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