Where did all these hateful MAGA people come from?

[vlyons]

What happened? Babies aren't born filled with hatred. What are the causes and conditions for so many people to think that they could proudly and publicly act like assholes and endanger other people? Deny other people their natural rights? Didn't their parents teach them any beneficial social skills? Were they never taught the Golden Rule? Were they never corrected for telling lies?
I just don't get it.

[Turbineguy]

1. Leaded gasoline.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. Something leaded, like the pipe their parents hit them over the head with.

[sakabatou]

2. My guess is Hate Radio and Fox Noise

[vlyons]

16. Years ago I listened to Rush a few times, while driving.

His Femi-Nazi rants (among others) made me change the channel. He didn't turn me into a hater. Why can't people just decide they don't to be filled with anger and hatred and change the channel?

It must be a bad habit like gambling and smoking.

[Emile]

18. Bingo, years of propaganda brainwashing.

[TheRealNorth]

38. This...

But the racism and misogyny was always there hiding. Trump and Tea Party brought it out of hiding.

[elleng]

3. Ditto.

There seems to be one in my 'distant' family, a family we've just met (due to adoption,) and there appears to be ONE of them therein; the remainder are loving people.

[Wicked Blue]

4. Fox News nt

[BootinUp]

5. I think its a culture. A very old and ugly one. nt

[Native]

6. They have always been there. What's changed is they've now been liberated.

[elleng]

11. YES, I think you've got it, somehow

'he' has given them permission to show the worst parts of themselves, and others join like a large magnet.

[Native]

21. I mean, even the churches they go to are condoning the hatred.

I'd think that would give even the most reticent the license to let their hate flags fly.

[Mariana]

48. Churches preaching hatred is nothing new.

[PJMcK]

7. They've always been amongst us

Really, you've seen and heard these bigots your whole life, haven't you? It's just that before Trump, they knew they had to keep their hatreds and ignorance on the QT. But Trump told them it was okay to hate anyone who wasn't a white Christian. He opened the flood gates.

Remember that Reagan (another phony Christian) affiliated with the so-called Moral Majority (they were neither). Those fundamentalist nut jobs set in motion the nonsense that we're dealing with today nearly 40 years later.

The bigots have been around since before our nation was formed. The Civil War only exacerbated the racism and ignorance that we have infecting our society. Until those issues are resolved, the wounds and hate will go on.

[elleng]

13. No, PJ, I don't think that I'd seen and heard these bigots my whole life, or

just lucky (or blind or immune?)

[Elessar Zappa]

20. My mom moved to Mississippi in 1971

and she was horrified by the amount of open bigots there. So bigots have always existed in large numbers.

[elleng]

23. I guess so. I'm from New York, so to some extent was spared,

and now in 'moderate' Maryland.

[PJMcK]

41. That's stunning to me

I grew up in an upper-middle class family and lived mostly in all-white or mostly-white communities. Nonetheless, since I grew up in the '60s and '70s, my parents were adamant that my siblings and I learn tolerance and acceptability of the diversity for the world. They and traveled to Europe in post-World War II and saw a lot of humanity. But I still heard and saw a lot of anti-Semitism (our town in Connecticut was about 1/3 Jewish), anti-black attitudes (when our sports teams would go to other more diverse towns) and anti-immigrant slurs. It was puzzling to me because I didn't share those views thanks to my folks and I didn't get why some kids and their parents thought this shit was funny.

When I moved to NYC to go to college, it was like an explosion of influences from around the world. My classmates were from Japan, England, Spain, South Africa and many other countries as well as from all over the United States. It was fantastic to hear of their homelands and I'm sure it only added to my lifelong wanderlust. During those school years, I lived in West Harlem so I was surrounded by people from many different cultures. They were mostly regular people trying to live their lives and care for their families. in other words, they were just like me.

Yet through it all, I've always heard people whisper snotty comments or racial slurs. Perhaps it's because I'm a white man and they would just assume I shared their bigoted and hateful views.

You're fortunate if you haven't had any of these negative experiences. I'm still shocked when I hear or see bigotry.

[elleng]

45. THANKS for jogging my memory, PJ! My first home was Brooklyn, after Manhattan birth,

and lived in B'kyn until, after my mother's death, Dad remarried and we moved to Long Island, in 1954; anniversary just occurred.

MOST IMPORTANT, imo, was my early education, in Brooklyn public schools, P.S. 5 and then, one day, we all walked to our new school, P.S. 21!

My best friend: Ilya Clark, (Maybe Puerto Rican,) and my favorite teacher Mrs. Farrar, (sp?) I used to call her at night, ('I miss my mother!') Mrs. Holtzman also a teacher who looked after me during that rough time, 3rd and 4th grades.

Thereafter we travelled, tolerance and acceptability were just part of who we were, thanks to Dad who was born in NY, and lived there 'forever,' until they moved to FL after winter got to them. Thank goodness they're not alive to see today's awfulness.

[Meadowoak]

8. I think every family has one. They weren't always so vocalabout

It before the internet, then came Trump.

[SWBTATTReg]

9. Good question and also, good question on where they picked up being so hateful, uncaring about

others, etc.

The only thing I can think of is that they grew up somewhat entitled and kept that mannerism (a stupid one) when most people who become adults from their teenager/young adult stage of life realize that to get ahead in life and everything, be nice to people, help others. They never learn this secret of being nice and kind, etc. and hence, never experience the joy of people helping each other (and do it because they want to, etc.).

My brother was like this, and was resentful and always angry, never could figure it out. I tried to tell him but he wouldn't listen.

My dad bless his heart taught me this.

[Diamond_Dog]

10. Bigotry and hatred has to be taught.

Sadly, it is learned at home, for the most part.

[TheBlackAdder]

15. Taught and reinforced by family, neighbors, church congregants and community.

.

There are so many controlling elements that keep people in check, that change is near impossible.

The only real way for these people to change, individually, is to leave the environment and cut off from the media that promotes the similar messaging. It's difficult to deprogram a cult member, that's why family would kidnap them and hold them in an intervention so that there can be no influences from the cult to help pull them back.

.

[vlyons]

28. well that makes sense. Very similar to cultists

I grew up in Texas. My Dad was a Dallas cop, and very racist. Whenever a black performer was on Ed Sullivan, he would change the channel. I went to public schools that were segregated by law. I remember the buses had these little signs above the windows that said: whites to the front, coloreds to the back. His mother, my grandmother, was not a racist. She would go to the back of the bus and introduce herself: "I'm Mrs XXXXX, and I'm the Democratic precinct chair of XXXXX. Are you registered to vote?" When I was 16, I stood in line to desegregate the lunch counter in the basement of the downtown Woolworths. I caught hell, when I got home. My parents read me the riot act for 2 hours.

I still don't get why people allow themselves to be full of hatred.

[Jade Fox]

39. Wow. Congratulations and thanks to you and your Grandmother...

[Irish_Dem]

14. The GOP has been taking Americans to the dark side for decades.

Hatred and fear are mother's milk to them.

[Midnight Writer]

17. Most of them I know were apolitical when I met them.

They didn't pay much attention to politics, were more focused on their jobs, their family, their sports team, their entertainment.

Then they started listening to Rush Limbaugh, the Gateway Drug. They thought he was funny and clever, and as they listened to be entertained, they absorbed his message. But like most drug users, they built up a tolerance, and they needed more potent and more frequent fixes. They found those fixes on ever-expanding Hate Radio, on FOXNews, on internet sites. They connected with like-minded people on social media and discovered a community that welcomed them, that gave them a purpose, that gave them a higher purpose, that validated their prejudices and celebrated their ignorance. They joined that insular community as it turned into a cult. And like any cult, the more extreme their devotion, the more revered their status within that cult. Finally, the cult became the most important thing to them. More important than family, more important than the community they lived in, more important than their jobs, more important than the welfare of themselves and the people around them.

This whole process was encouraged by unscrupulous political figures, by uber-rich charlatans, by corporations who wanted to exploit the electorate in order to gain favorable treatment by the government. Now they are a fully-ingrained, politically powerful part of our society, and they will not willingly give that up.

[PortTack]

35. I believe you really hit on something..they were very apolitical

Now, they have a cause that has brought them together.

Uneducated, unfulfilled, angry because they haven’t been able to make their lives work and many are poor. Mix that together with someone who tells them how wonderful they are and you have your hate filled cult. Now, deeply seeded in the cult mindset, they cannot or will not easily let go, or see that they are being used and abused.

[CottonBear]

53. You've described my non-college educated sister.

I have to say that I regret encouraging her to vote during the early 2000s.

[PortTack]

56. Geez I'm really sorry..that sucks!

[CottonBear]

57. Thanks. At least she believes in getting COVID19 vaccinations, so there's that. NT

[Conjuay]

19. The

privileged disenfranchised.

[MiHale]

22. How I explained it to another...

He’s always leaned Dem but, due to his job, he can’t really get into the news shows. An intelligent man just doesn’t like to read but on with it.

Think of a large pig enclosure. We know the pigs are there, we can see them sometimes even hear them but as long as they’re happy in their pen rolling in the mud they become irrelevant to us, beside the point, we tend to forget they’re there. Then the fence gives way because of them rooting around, this is when chaos begins. The things we kinda forgot about now are all we hear and see as they reek havoc in the farmyard.

They were always there.

[Wednesdays]

24. Gee, I wonder...

[bucolic_frolic]

25. Life at the bottom was always filled with sociopaths

Rule of law kept them in their place. Cheeto tapped into their repressed anger for his own benefit.

[AllaN01Bear]

26. i remember seeing a documentary on tv about american nazis, they wer showing this fam

on the tube . their 12 yo son got his first nazi uniform and he was quite proud of it. liberal media, hem

[dchill]

27. They came from the past. Time travelers raised by...

...fear-addled hatemongers who denied real history and substituted pseudo-religious racist claptrap. Here then and here now.

[LowerManhattanite]

29. Shame stopped working.

They felt uncomfortable being terrible people out in front.

That discomfort is now gone.

In fact? Being terrible is celebrated.

This is “The Age Of The *sshole”.

[AnotherMother4Peace]

30. Brain washed cultists. Attacking the Capitol? Attacking FBI? Dear leader is making the call. nt

[Pobeka]

31. You have to be carefully taught.

[allegorical oracle]

49. Or totally ignored. I grew up with very wealthy cousins. Their parents traveled all the time and

they were left in a big house in the care of a Black couple -- the woman was their nanny, cook, and disciplinarian. Her husband was their driver and the landscaper. My cousins ran amok, like wild animals. The world revolved around them and existed to follow their orders. That was back in the 1950s -- and they haven't changed. (And they're both solid MAGAts.)

[Docreed2003]

32. To paraphrase JC

"The MAGAs have always been with you.."

They just needed a leader like Trump to give them permission and promotion for their bigotry and hate

[Initech]

33. Fox News fills their lack of education with hatred and lies.

[RKP5637]

34. They have always been there, but lacked the advanced communications we now have. I recall

years ago hearing Joe Pine in DC. IMO he was an early nutcase. Today we have endless propaganda from Fox News and the like. There are hate groups all over the place. It does not take much to get indoctrinated. It's a horrible situation.

[viva la]

36. The few I know-- One was always hateful.

But the other two I think really were corrupted by Trump. He stoked their resentments, like one was a veteran who thought he didn't get enough respect or success, and another was a professional woman who was angry at the world, really, because she had adopted (and loved) a child who turned out to have cognitive limitations. She always needed to blame someone-- the adoption agency, the bio-mom, the school system for not being able to get the girl up to college-prep level.

Trump comes in and says, "You're right to be angry. You're right to blame others. You're being cheated. Other people are getting what you ought to be getting."

I suspect that if they hadn't been able to channel that Trumpian resentment fluid, they might have, you know, decided they wanted to cope better with life and control their anger problems. (As many people do!) But they're not going to go into therapy or even talk to friends about how they feel, because Trump keeps them thinking they are super-right to be hating others and blaming others.

I think they're too far gone to come back-- they've done enough damage by now to relationships. But it does make me think that an evil leader can make vulnerable people decide to be evil too. (I think that means a good leader can lead people to do good things too.)

[Novara]

50. I agree with your analysis

But you left out one thing: the media amplified the orange fuck's hate and gave it the stamp of approval. Once it was given legitimacy they knew they had carte blanche to keep stroking their hate and it's been building to its present level. And I don't think we're done yet.

Think back for a second to Hillary's campaign: "Love trumps hate." Think about "When they go low, we go high." Think how naive that sounds now. But that used to be the guiding principle that most of us were brought up with. It used to be something to aspire to. Being a good and decent human being was worthwhile.

Hate is a drug. It feels good to indulge in hate. You know it's wrong but it's a high. And when it's given legitimacy as a political platform, the addiction spirals out of control.

Imagine if the media immediately called out the despicable comments of the orange fuck from the moment he came down that ridiculous escalator and didn't treat him like entertainment.Imagine if they denounced every hateful thing he said. We wouldn't be here.

I fear you are also right that we can't go back. We can't stuff them back under their slimy rocks. But we need to keep calling it out like the president did the other day.

[viva la]

58. "love trumps Trump!"

I hope.

[RAB910]

37. Anti-American right-wing propaganda turned all their fears into hatred

[BBbats]

40. Let's not forget the racism factor.

I know a lot of people,even ones I thought were sensible,who never gave a hoot about politics until a Black man became President.
Many wouldn't come out & say it but even those who didn't seem racist were deeply troubled by that. Having a Black President checked something buried deep inside them. They just felt it was "wrong" deep inside. Some of these people I know didn't bother to vote until Obama won. Some didn't vote until the advent of Trump.
There was a young guy I casually knew who was a political science major at the University of Pennsylvania, During the 2008 elections I was thrilled that a Black candidate won the Democratic primary for President.He shook his head & said the last thing he wanted to see was a Black President. I asked why. He said the Black candidate they pick might win & get two terms. He'll do an excellent job but there will be backlash. A Black President will hit a deep nerve even in people you don't think are racist. The next Republican candidate will be absolutely the worst white male possible. You won't think it's possible that someone like that could even run for the office. He'll make racism "hip" again. He'll make it OK to wear it on your sleeve. He will destroy this country. He will probably win.
I can't say he was wrong.

[Novara]

51. The country lost its goddamned mind when we elected a black man as president

And this is why I don't expect to see a woman elected to the presidency in my lifetime. Their side hates women in power even more than black men in power. To them women are either mothers or whores.

Today I wore my "THAT WOMAN FROM MICHIGAN" t-shirt to the grocery store. The orange fuck hates Gretchen Whitmer because she is a smart, powerful, tough, confident woman. And she's beautiful (beautiful women are supposed to be dumb ornaments). And she can laugh at herself, which makes men like them feel even more insecure. The amount of specifically gendered hate she gets is astonishing.

Nope, I doubt I'll see a woman elected to the presidency in my lifetime. Not after this amount of violent backlash from having a black president.

[Karadeniz]

42. There are three potential influences that compose Mind. Most research centers on the brain and

how it works, allowing people to misconstrue brain activity as Mind. However, there is a mountain of research... Out of body experiences, testing of reincarnation claims, Mind influence on the physical environment, highly controlled studies of data reported via psychics, Mind able to see, hear and move away from the brain, eyes and ears. So, there is a Mind element which transcends brain abilities, even physical death.

The primary purpose of brain is physical survival. An unfortunate product is Ego, emotional survival. So, Mind has these two aims, its person's physical and emotional welfare. But what accounts for Mind's paranormal status? Most people cite the Soul, and I am perfectly happy with that. At 17, I had an experience in which all humans were reduced to what I recognized as Mind and Soul energy.

Why do we have soul? We know the biological origins of the brain; where is the origin of Soul? If the nature of brain is Self centered, what is the nature of Soul? These questions are not answered via study of the paranormal intersecting with the physical. These answers by default are provided by religion, and that has proven to often be a hot mess.

I personally fall back on my experience of Soul and Mind. There, a single Radiation which one could see and feel erupted like a geyser from a Source which one would never see until one's soul was sufficiently similar in nature to that of the Source to unite with it. I understood that I had been in this world many times before. Reincarnation. I knew that my soul was not sufficiently Good for that union. Karma. The nature of Soul and the Source, as one understands it by experiencing the Radiance, is the Good. It arouses the Soul energy and vibration to bliss, ecstacy. The Radiance is an equal opportunity joy maker, available to all souls sufficiently Good to bask close enough to it to feel it. By far, the vast majority of Souls are stuck outside its influence. But, those souls are reminded of their purpose, to "imitate god," by the energy/vibration composition of more perfect souls entering and exiting this recharge station.

TO FINALLY ANSWER YOUR QUESTION!!! All men are only created equal in the sight of the law. We are not created equal physically and even less when it comes to Mind. I admit to being stunned by the selfishness, sheer petty meanness, threats of violence to opposition, and pure evil of those political factions seeking to sabotage equality under the law. NEVER did I anticipate that so many Minds could be so lacking in Soul energy that Ego would dominate all behavior. Ego cares only about itself and self gratification. Ego doesn't care a snap for the welfare of others, respects no other opinions and seeks only to justify its fearful, suspicious, greedy nature. Ego has no reality except what it can create out of the physical world.

So, people are mean, violent, victims, conspiratorial because their Minds are incomplete. Soul cares for others. Soul doesn't care about race, religion, gender... that's all temporal. The Incompletes would listen to a society that demanded fairness, inclusion, justice because society is physical. Unfortunately, in America, they have created and support minisocieties where materialism and hate can thrive.

[moondust]

43. I attribute much of it to

increasing numbers being overcome by the greed and selfishness unleashed by Raygun 40 years ago. He may have demonized "big gubment" as simply a RW political wedge in their war of capitalism vs. communism but I suspect a deeper effect may have been to create a lot of obsessively selfish sociopaths and psychopaths. Partly explains their devotion to the king of greed and selfishness.

[Novara]

52. My motto is: Reagan Ruined Everything

[Sky Jewels]

44. Religion has been a huge part of the problem.

It goes hand-in-hand with the strong anti-intellectualism and anti-science strains that have long plagued this country. "Faith" is literally "belief in the absence of evidence." Millions of Americans think these silly Mesopotamian patriarchal mythologies about supernatural beings performing magical acts and so on are literally true. So if they believe those, they'll believe just about anything. They're susceptible to propaganda that tells them that they're better than "those others" and therefore entitled to treat them like shit.

[allegorical oracle]

46. Think some people are born with a tendency toward enjoying the misery of others. Can recall the

bullies of both genders when I was in first grade. Some straighten out as they mature. Others stay in a state of grievance all their lives. A story I posted about tfg as a kid, quoted neighbors saying how he beat up the other kids, especially ones who were smaller than he was. Being sent to detention didn't seem to matter. Even the fairly nice trumpsters I know get a big kick out of seeing other people having a hard time. Makes them feel better about themselves, evidently.

[BComplex]

47. Fux Nooz and the Federalist Society

moving everything toward dividing and UN-uniting the USA.

Real Americans need to join, and bac, the American Constitution Society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Constitution_Society

[Hermit-The-Prog]

54. Home, "church", and ...

[scipan]

55. You could say that the 1964 Civil Rights Act started it

(LBJ underestimated the effect it had), and the resulting republican Southern Strategy. That got the republicans and the southern raçists together, which seems to me to be a particularly toxic combination. Before that, republicans were more like New England upper income folks and Democrats were more lower income "little guys".

But you could go back farther. I think racism is our original sin. I was raised by racists. The idea of some group of people being intrinsically superior to another group just poisons some people's minds IMO.