February 24, 2016 4:55 AM

If your business is hatred and divisiveness, business is pretty good

America is getting angrier, according to one watchdog. For the first time in five years, the number of hate groups in the United States rose in 2015, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center…. The number of such groups spiked 14 percent in 2015, a year characterized by levels of polarization and anger perhaps unmatched since the political turmoil of 1968…. Swelling numbers of Ku Klux Klan chapters and black separatist groups drove last year’s surge, though organizations classified as anti-gay, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim saw small increases, too. “It was a year marked by very high levels of political violence, enormous rage in the electorate and a real significant growth in hate groups,” said Mark Potok, author of the report.

Perhaps the one good thing the late Rodney King left us with is “Can’t we all just get along?” He died before he could see that wish fulfilled…and it’s beginning to appear as if many of us now drawing breath will as well. In an era in which America is becoming every more fractured along racial, religious, ethnic, and ideological lines, tolerance for those who are different is running at low ebb. Even worse, there exists an entire industry whose raison d’etre is to propagate and foster hatred and divisiveness.

It doesn’t help that we live in a climate in which strident voices on the Right traffic in hatred and exclusion in an effort to garner support and seize control. The appeal of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is based in large part on the language of divisiveness and rage: stoking the fear of angry, frustrated White Conservatives who believe their previously unquestioned position at the top of the political/socioeconomic food chain being to be imperiled. They have nothing positive to offer, nothing that speaks to how they’ll make America a better, safer, more prosperous and harmonious place…and so they default to fanning the flames of unrest. Both Cruz and Trump are smart enough to recognize that peace, love, and understanding aren’t selling well these days. They know that to have any hope of success, they have to give the Sheeple what they want…and these days, they want to know who to blame.

The center credits a number of factors for inciting that anger, including shifting demographics that largely favor non-whites; immigration; legalized same-sex marriage; the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement; and the all-too-real atrocities carried out by Islamic terrorists.

A creeping rhetoric of intolerance among politicians helped to normalize hate, the center argued. And while it singled out other presidential contenders, too, the center—which conservatives criticize for casting too wide a net—stated that Donald Trump had “electrified the radical right.”

The sad thing is that, as the Dalai Lama once pointed out, hatred is so much heavier and far more taxing than love and peaceful coexistence. It costs nothing to be kind…yet so many Americans these days refuse to spend even that much. Hatred and divisiveness provide an outlet for those who are frustrated and angry; they offer up a class of people that can be blamed for what they feel are the reasons they’re denied the success they believe is their due.

Presidential politics on the Right is currently driven by the power of blame and scapegoating. Whether it’s Muslims, illegal immigrants, the poor, the unemployed, atheists, or the LGBT community (to name but a few scapegoats), those leading the race for the GOP nomination are heavily invested in hatred, exclusion, and intolerance. Listen to Republicans for any length of time, and you’ll be surprised at how little you hear about what their program is, what they plan to DO. What you’ll hear in vivid detail is how [insert name of preferred scapegoated class here] should be held responsible for the myriad things wrong with America today. Instead of celebrating what’s good and right about America, Republicans are relying on the language of hatred, exclusion, and divisiveness to pave the road to their party’s nomination.

It’s difficult to understand how so many could fall under the spell of demagogue and hatemongers like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump. When a despot like John Kasich is considered the “moderate” in the field (even as he defunded Planned Parenthood in Ohio), you have to know that something is terribly, horribly, deeply wrong with our political process.

Whoever the Republican nominee turns out to be, it will undoubtedly be someone selling hatred, divisiveness, and the politics of destruction and oppression. While I have little faith in the intellectual and moral capacity of the American Sheeple (In the words of John Wayne, “Life is hard. It’s harder when you’re stupid.”), I have to somehow hang onto the hope that the politics of hatred and blaming The Other won’t carry the day in November. Without that hope, I fear there’d be nothing to shield America from finally becoming what the Far Right wants- a theocracy/idiocracy in which the American Sheeple hate whom they’re told to hate. It would be a political system perpetuated by sheeple consistently voting against their own best interests. This system would exist because the American Sheeple are too “low information” to recognize they’re being manipulated- in this case, by the modern day reincarnations of Benito Mussolini and Joseph McCarthy.

We deserve better. Whether or not the American Sheeple will resist the rhythmic drumbeat of hatred, intolerance, and exclusion remains to be seen. I’d like to say I’m unfailingly optimistic about what the future holds…but I’m a lousy liar.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 24, 2016 4:55 AM.

The politics of the American Taliban has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ was the previous entry in this blog.

It's Hump Day, so here's the obligatory "politician with a puppy" picture is the next entry in this blog.

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