More Hate - Several emails

More Hate - Several emails about yesterday's piece on the climate of hatred that led to this, among other things:

Let's start here - a correspondent writes:

It seems like you could develop the notion of progressive politics as a religion even further (e.g. NGO’s as missionaries), but I haven’t tried to work it through to see where I end up.

Well, let's run with the idea, shall we?

The left - especially the Minnesota DFL - reminds me of the perpetually-warring branches of the Lutheran Church; last summer's DFL convention - with feminists, Greens and the "old-boy" DFL machine all engaged in a game of "who's holier", like the Missouri Synod and the ELCA going at it, hammer and tongs. And it seems (to the casual observer) that an awful lot of DFL activists have no other job or vocation in life - like good acolytes, they've devoted their lives to the cause.

Again, it's a casual observation.

Another emailer wrote me:

Before I start, I want to make it clear that I think the defacing of the Coleman billboard was wrong. It was also stupid, immature, and hateful as well. With that said, I have to disagree with your implication that the inter-party hate consists entirely of Democrats hating Republicans.:

I'd never dream of saying the hatred is all one-way. You don't have to listen to much of the Jason Lewis or Dave Thompson shows to hear a caller bubbling over with rage - it's become a media cliche, the angry white talk radio caller. I neither deny them, nor make excuses for them. However...well, we'll return to that thought later.

I took some time out of my apolitical life this past election day and volunteered to help get-out-the-vote for the first time in my life on November 5th (maybe because of some sympathy for Wellstone's campaign or something, I'm not really sure why). During that day I spent an hour or so a highway overpass here in Minneapolis' western suburbs holding Mondale campaign signs. The reactions I observed fell into four categories, listed here in decreasing order of occurrence:

1) No reaction
2) Thumbs-up/Wave/Honk
3) Raised middle-finger
4) Thumbs-down/Head shake

What really surprised me was the order of the last two reactions. How could someone dislike a candidate so much that their reaction to a campaign
sign would be an obscene gesture at the person holding it? And, more importantly, how could that reaction be more predominant than some other more civil (less hateful) negative reaction?:

When I worked in talk radio, we learned one statistical truism - 1% of all people who believe in any given idea will call a talk show. I don't think it's overstepping to extend that to people sitting in their cars: only a small percentage will be motivated enough to feel strongly enough about anything to do anything about it. And I think it's reasonable to assume that anyone who feels negatively enough to react at all, might react strongly - and extending the middle finger takes less effort than a thumbs-down.

I guess my point is that there are extremists out there from both ends of the political spectrum that have gone overboard in their expressions of dislike people with different ideologies. Maybe it's so much a part of the discussion among pundits that those politically active (like yourself) don't recognize it unless it's directed at someone "on your side," but it's very obvious to me. As someone who's political involvement has been pretty much limited to voting every couple of years, I'd have to say that there's all kinds of hate out there and the Democrats don't have a lock on it.

I'd never dream of saying the Dems had a lock on hatred and bigotry. I've sat through GOP caucus meetings where I heard some fairly noxious bilge.

The difference, I suggest, is this: I suggest the genuine hatred on the part of GOPers is the extreme; you don't see Republicans of the stature and fame analogous to, say, Garrison Keillor or Alec Baldwin or Cher or Barbra Streisand saying the sorts of things about Democrats that we've heard going the other way. Fringe players, yes - not the mainstream. Not the leadership. Picture Arnold Scwarzenegger insulting his enemies like Barbra Streisand. Does it work? I don't think so.

The standard response from the left when I say that is "Oh, yeah? What about Limbaugh? 'Feminazi' isn't very civil!". True, it's not. It's also aimed, rather forthrightly, at specific people as a consequence for specific deeds, not a generalized reflection on the humanity of the phrase's target.

More to come.

St. Paul School Board News- We'll do Part II of the SPPS Budget Shenanigans series next week. I'm still running down some facts.

Posted by Mitch at December 1, 2002 12:24 AM