The United States of Hate

By Margaret Mulvihill

Monday, July 11, 2016

In this current atmosphere of roiling hatred, the presidential campaign of 2016 has given us a choice. We can elect as President of the United States of America, the presumptive Republican nominee Donald J. Trump, a sociopathic narcissist, or the presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, a sociopathic narcissist.

Donald Trump is all about Donald Trump. An angry buffoon, he has used the network and cable television stations as cheap, if not free, advertising. Comcast, majority owner of NBCUniversal, MSNBC, NBC, Bravo, USA and more, has donated thousands of free advertising hours to Trump. The Rupert Murdoch family has propped Trump up, likewise donating thousands of free advertising hours to the campaign. Why is nobody asking about the potential payoff to both news organizations should Trump become President? In addition to being an angry buffoon, Donald Trump has become the face of Fascism in the 21^st Century.  He is a very dangerous man who has already done untold damage to the fabric of our society.

Hillary Clinton is all about Hillary Clinton. Icy and remote, she hides behind issues and shamelessly uses the African American community as a cloak and as a shield. That she is corrupt is beyond doubt. Only the most naïve among us could see Clinton as a good woman, a caring politician. Her policies, her stated ambitions, her very history in political life, all serve as a warning to voters. Is this who we want as our next President? The Clinton campaign is spending millions of dollars in advertising and counter-advertising. That money is not flowing into her campaign from the grassroots level. It is flowing into her campaign from special-interest groups and lobbyists.

It may come down to one question at the ballot box. Who will do the least harm to our country over the next four years?

Make no mistake, whoever is elected in November will be a one-term president. Only the most extreme right wing Republicans want Donald Trump in the White House, but the party faithful will turn out en masse to vote for him. Because that’s what they do.

Nobody wants Hillary Clinton in the White House either, and her best hope for election may be disenchanted centrist/republican voters she is spending so much money to reach. It is difficult if not impossible to see any liberal supporters of Senator Sanders pulling the lever for Clinton. The upcoming election may well be the turning point in this country’s civil rights history. That activists have been fighting for equality since the 1950s appears lost this election cycle. The vote this election cycle will be a vote for good versus evil.

We the People had an opportunity this election cycle to bring sanity to this country. We had the opportunity to elect an honest man to the Presidency. And we blew it. A huge majority of the people supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in his bid for the Presidency. The Clinton Machine steamrollered right over him, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. Sanders was outmaneuvered by a very politically corrupt couple and their equally corrupt political machine, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

As an Irish immigrant, this is the most unsettled I have ever felt in this country. The hatred is flowing relentlessly from all sides. It’s about the worst I’ve experienced in my 22 years here. Anger and hatred are no longer simmering beneath the surface of daily life. Anger and hatred are exploding, corroding and coloring our daily lives. Mass shootings by deranged killers warrant headlines for a few days until the next breaking news cycle erupts. Police officers feel free to shoot black men and women on sight. Driving While Black is a seriously dangerous occupation.

The Clintons. The Bushes. The Democrats. The Republicans. All factions infused with hatred, all inciting an unsettled populace to violence. Where is this all leading to? On the left, the corrupt Clinton political machine is supported and enabled by the main stream media. A good, honest man, Bernie Sanders is steamrollered.

This climate of fear and hatred has been in the forefront of the national media for more than a decade. It is unavoidable on social media, this hate spewing from left, center, and right. Republican Party leaders and the Tea Party, the ultimate right wing nut jobs, were given free rein to dominate the news cycles and get their messages of hate across to their white supremacist supporters. We didn’t pay enough attention to them at the time. That element of hatred and evil should have been highlighted, and repudiated. But it wasn’t. Now it’s too late.

What does the current State of Hate mean for everyday life here in 2016 America? For me personally, it means a loss of respect for Republican voters, any Republican voter, any Republican. A vote for a Republican is a vote for hatred, for white supremacy, for a return to a very bad time in the history of this country. It’s a vote for the Ku Klux Klan, for the National Rifle Association. It’s a vote of and for hatred.

I look at these voters in my community, and I no longer see the plumber, the electrician, or the undertaker. I see people infused with hatred, spitting fire on social media about democrats and liberals.  I can’t socialize with you when you support hate. I can’t employ you. I don’t want to be employed by you. I can’t support your charitable or social initiative. The so-called Tea Party movement has taken over the Republican Party. When I think of the words ‘hatred’, and ‘racism’, an image of the faces of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan pop into my mind. These two men, over all others, are the visible faces of hate. Racist to their rotten cores. Filled with hatred. United in hate, you might say, in their United States of Hate.