Many historians trace the history of negative campaigning to the presidential election of 1800. Thomas Jefferson ran against incumbent John Adams. Though many years after that campaign they would renew a friendship, that election had a striking, negative tone. Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward.
While those words were harsh in 1800, they seem almost innocuous today. The hatred that spews from the Left in 2018 is some of the worst that this nation has ever seen. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” The Left, as is their bent, has forsaken the words of Dr. King and have adopted a strategy of uncivil disobedience at any and every opportunity.
Since his election in November of 2016, President Trump has been the prime target of some of the most vitriolic and vile attacks this country has seen. Literally hours after his inauguration, the entertainer Madonna said, “”Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” The liberal Huffington Post has repeatedly and without justification called President Trump a racist. The Left is rabid in their rage against the president. Chris Cillizza of CNN says of the Left, “They hate him. They believe he is a racist. A xenophobe. Someone who is using the presidency to enrich himself. To them, he is the worst president ever.”
Hatred is not limited to the president, though. Vice President Mike Pence has dealt with inane and insane attacks from comedians, pundits and the mainstream media.
Hateful attacks on the leaders of our country is despicable, but it doesn’t stop there. The Left is now engaged in hateful acts against those who work with and support the president. Just this week we’ve witnessed the “tolerance” of the Left on display. Consider these examples…
Sarah Huckabee Sanders was dining with her family in Lexington, VA. The owner of the restaurant the Red Hen felt compelled to tell Sanders and her family to leave. The restaurant would not serve them specifically because she works for the president. Stephanie Wilkinson, the co-owner, “felt compelled to take a stand, citing what she called the Trump White House’s inhumane and unethical actions.” Uh huh, that’s tolerance, all right. No, in real America we call that hate.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was harassed and forced to leave a Mexican restaurant in Washington last week. Protestors stormed into the restaurant and pelted those there with chants of “shame” and “end family separation.” Clearly, political dissent is fine. This, though, is not political dissent. It is rude. It is shameful. It is hate. Secretary Nielsen was also harassed at her home when protestors gathered by her house to spew hate and anger. President Obama at a Notre Dame graduation in 2009 spoke of, “a commitment to a more civil and substantive dialogue.” I guess to his liberal friends in the resistance that means shouting obscenities in a restaurant and bombarding a quiet neighborhood with ugly chants.
Florida attorney general Pam Bondi and presidential aide Stephen Miller also had to deal with the demonstrated hatred of the Left last week. Bondi was confronted at a Florida movie complex and Miller at a Washington D.C. restaurant.
Representative Maxine Waters brazenly describe this new line of attack. She said, “If you see someone who works for President Donald Trump, you confront them. You build a crowd. You push back on them.” Rep. Waters may call that a strategy. Liberals may call that payback. What regular, everyday Americans call it is hate and harassment.
The Left’s hate is not limited to the politicians, though. Now, it seems they hate you and me. Donny Deutsch, contributor to the Morning Joe show on MSNBC said, “If you vote for Trump, then you, the voter, you, not Donald Trump, are standing at the border, like Nazis going ‘you here, you here.”
According to a Vox article in December of 2017, Trump won the presidency because of “racial resentment.” Leonard Pitts, in a May 2018 column in The Miami Herald announced he was finished trying to understand the Trump voter. He concluded, “So no, they don’t really need to be understood. What they need to be, is defeated.”
So, let’s get it straight. According to the Left, those of us who voted for Trump are racist, Nazis who are beyond understanding. We simply must be defeated. I guess Michele Obama’s line, “When they go low, we go high” means to use inflammatory rhetoric; label and categorize those who disagree and don’t engage in civil conversation. That’s “going high”? No, I don’t think so. That’s just hate.
What do we do in this hurricane of hate? It’s not a hard question. We support our leaders who face this disgusting onslaught every day. We vote and win the mid-term elections. Our voting is a reminder that hate does not and will not win. We take the example of those who were personally attacked and take the higher road. The Left’s hatred is proof. We’re winning.
Image: photo credit: JP Korpi-Vartiainen Cast-off via photopin (license)
