I have no easier time trying to understand Trump than I have of understanding unbridled hate. I do know that you can never underestimate the destructive power of hate. Whenever you minimize Trump’s ranting as sheer rhetoric, chest pounding and bullying, might makes right antics, then keep in mind that no one believed Hitler’s ranting against the Jews would result in genocide. As rational human beings, we tend to deny what is unthinkable and sweep it under the carpet as a mess we can deal with some other day. Keep in mind that in the 1930s, the New York Times convincingly reassured its readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture.
I remember taking a political theory course in college and studying social justice. The course narrative was framed by John Rawls’ epic work The Theory of Justice. As a sidebar, the topic of Nazi Germany came up for discussion and we pondered the reasons why the German people accepted Nazism and became complicit in the genocide of the Jews. I wasn’t satisfied probing why people became fascists; I wanted to set forth the criteria of why some Germans did not become Nazis. The reason boiled down to one important fact—people who have a highly evolved consciousness and a genuine compassion for humanity do not get swept away in the rhetoric of evil leaders and become embroiled in the type of hate that becomes complicit in violence.
Donna Donato was right about people like me. Those of us who think too much, or at least use our brains to think, find it unconscionable and morally repugnant to hate entire groups of people solely because of the intrinsic nature of who they are. Today Donna is an administrative healthcare worker, over sixty and obese—at high risk for developing serious Covid symptoms. She posts memes of Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity proclaiming that the virus is less deadly than previously thought. She will tell you that she is educated. She does have a degree in nursing. But being educated is more than having academic credentials. Education is lifelong learning. And sometimes it does mean thinking too much. It means doing the hard work to check sources and to verify facts. It means taking the time to distinguish reality from gaslighting. If only she would stop watching Fox-TV long enough to recognize that Trump is only an opportunist who fans the flames of hatred to stay in power.