Hating on Haters Does Not Make the Hate Go Away

Shiny readers, in light of recent runaway incivility, I hereby have some common sense to throw out there. Sort of a life saver if you want to think of it that way.

Ahem… throat clearing…

Here goes.

It’s not okay to say we believe in equality while believing we’re superior to Trump supporters at the same time.

That’s because we’re all equal. I mean, only if we really, truly believe that sort of thing, and the whole “love everyone” thing isn’t just a gimmick.

It is simply not okay to look down on anyone.

By the way, I want to make it clear that if liberals think Trump supporters are isolated to a narrow group of uneducated, uninformed, openly bigoted, brazenly hostile, simple-minded, close-minded Americans who somehow managed to elect a president in 2016, we seriously need to turn our back on our news sources.

Remember, the media’s job is to control the conversation.

(Do not start with me about Russia because this behavior has nothing to do with Russia, China, North Korea, or pretty much bumfuckanywhere.)

Hey, guess what? Trump voters are people, too.

If we don’t believe that, we have a failure to understand the concept of equality here.

The people who got Trump elected are myriad—

The perfectly nice person who waits on you at the credit union—and voted for Trump—is not the exception. The friendly woman who walks on the treadmill next to you at the YMCA—and voted for Trump—is not the exception. The lady who lives on your street and asks about your kids—and voted for Trump—is not the exception. The salesman who brought the homemade poundcake to your office and sits down to hang out a while before getting back in his car—and yes, voted for Trump—is not the exception. The woman talking to you in the waiting room at the doctor’s office—and voted for Trump—is not the exception.

These are just people. They’re not something we can blame or lash out at or throw under the cosmic bus. They’re people. Like you. Like me.

Forgodssake, let’s get past this (media-driven) narrative that skinheaded nazi sympathizing hicks are some sort of majority in this country.

I do not for one second believe that this over-emphasized, over-advertised, over-flaunted subset of Americans outnumbers all the lovely people who don’t care about all this shit but really do care about other people, along with the Hillary-hopers, the garden variety liberals, the hippie peace-nicks, the socialists, and everyone else, of course.

While I’m not blind to the ignoramouses running loose in the land, I can say from my own everyday experiences that most people in this country are okay. If your experience says otherwise, please consider moving. Or changing your attitude. Or expecting the best of people instead of expecting the worst.

And by “your experience,” I don’t mean what’s on TV—I mean what we experience in the flesh every day outside of the four walls of our houses in our little ol’ American lives.

Again, what we see on TV is there because the TV’s job is to control the conversation. It’s in someone’s best interest (not yours, not mine) to make us think that more than half the country is out to get us.

If we even jokingly believe that Trump voters all have ignorant country accents, we’re fucked.

If we believe that all Trump voters have mullets and wear mirrored wraparound sunglasses and shop at Walmart and eat bologna sandwiches on Wonderbread and wave Confederate flags from their trucks and want to kill all the gays, we are elitist snobs.

If we believe that a fair and balanced picture of our fellow American citizens—ahem, I mean our fellow human beings—who voted for Trump is that they are somehow of lesser human worth or dignity than we are, then please, let’s stop parading around as equality-minded.

Liberals of the United States, in spite of our ideals, it’s time to awaken to the fact that we do not have a monopoly on open-mindedness, or kindness, or love.

It’s time, shiny friends, to respect each other. Big time. And I’m talking real, honest-to-god respect.

It’s time to ditch the superior-minded we-must-be-the-leaders-because-we’re-the-smart-ones benevolent-spirited liberal-white-people-must-help-brown people crap and just treat people like people.

Respect means that we treat everyone—from our heart and soul—with the same dignity we expect from them.

Trump-voter bashing just makes us look bad—and the superiority is very unbecoming.

It’s betraying us, and instead, our real motives, sentiments, and character are showing.

So looking down at Trump voters is making us as bad as what we say we’re against. Weird how that works.

And by the way, liberals, no, it most certainly is not okay to talk of doing Trump voters harm in any way. And I mean crap like flattening tires and all those cute, funny little sabotage-y things people are talking about on the internet. You know who you are. Because since when do two wrongs make a right.

And because yes, the golden rule really is a thing.

And Trump voters, lest you think you’re off the hook from my wrath today, stop it with the snowflake thing. That’s just another knee-jerk talking point, and you don’t have to use it or anything like it. Be smarter than that. It’s fine if someone is offended. Let them be. Stop with your claims of thick-skinned superiority. None of your blame, belittling, and finger pointing is solving problems any better than the liberal blame, belittling, and finger pointing. So it’s not okay for you, either.

If we could all stop the knife fight our gang leaders and pimps have put us up to, we’d see that we all care about and need basically the same things in this life.

It should be obvious, but all we have is each other. Well, and our dogs. But our dogs won’t help us fix dinner and change our tires and fold our laundry and bring us a casserole when we’re sick. Seriously, we are literally stuck with each other.

The bottom line is this. When it comes to real, everyday life, the stuff that really makes up our existence, I truly don’t give a flying triple fudge sundae who anyone voted for.

I’m asking and pleading for us all to stop with the mean, clique-ish behavior where we look down on each other because of politics; where we assume that someone’s choices make them less smart and therefore less deserving of our equality-mindedness or respect or simply polite and decent manners; where we further entrench ourselves in us-and-them-ness and separateness instead of brotherly and sisterly love.

You know, we really can disagree with each other mightily without acting like we’re better than someone else.

Or actually believing we’re better than someone else.

Now I’m gonna go ahead and tell you now, I’m as guilty as the next liberal of doing this shit. I thought, behaved like, and believed Republicans were less intelligent than “my” side and were basically the root of all our problems due pretty much to their inferior intellect.

But I’m so over that shit.

Why the change of heart? It’s because Trump-voter bashing runs counter to everything I truly believe in to the core of my being.

It was this Trump-voter bashing shit (Thanks, Trump?) that made me realize what a dangerous path we’re on.

I’m gonna say, though, to conservatives, if I’m asking liberals to walk their love, peace, and equality talk, I’m asking you to tap into the very heart of Christianity: Treat other people just like you want them to treat you. And I don’t mean just dress up nice and fake it, Tammy Faye.

Look, shiny friends, I’m not denying there are beaucoups of racists and xenophobes and violent people and mean people and hateful people and people I wish we didn’t have to look at, listen to, or put up with.

But just because these people exist, and just because the media just loves to flaunt the jackasses around so we think every other person is like that, and just because Donald OHMYGOD Trump is our president does not mean we have an open line of credit on some sort of double standard credit card.

Because here’s the deal:

Hating on (alleged) haters does not make the hate go away.

Pretending we can dehumanize Trump voters, call them haters and crap, and somehow make things better will never work. If it doesn’t work when conservatives dehumanize liberals, why would it work the other way around?

In fact, this shit only makes things worse.

One side can’t very well demand something of the other and not be held to the same standard, right?

Or are we really saying that we believe in the sub-humanness of someone else?

God, I hope not.

I know, like, respect, and love too many people whose ballot probably doesn’t, didn’t, and never will look like mine.

I don’t fucking care.

I don’t want to walk away from the many very good humans in my life because someone on TV or the internet tells me that all Trump supporters are stupid. I know otherwise.

So, please, liberals, if we really do care about others, we can’t be perched on our self-made pedestals looking down our noses at Trump supporters.

Sure, I may think he sucks, but that’s just my opinion. It doesn’t make me a better person than someone else.

People may be born into different circumstances, but human existence is level ground.

Before taking a stand or making a statement, we ought to ask ourselves if it demeans, devalues, or puts someone else down.

Because it’s all fun and games till we start chipping away at each other’s human worth. So let’s not do that.

Namaste, shalom, peace, shiny readers. ❤️

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