Meme Logic

Where Hate Has No Home

Mark Halperin warned us. When the long-time political commentator appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show a few weeks before the election, he predicted that if Harris lost “it will cause the biggest mental health crisis in the history of America.”

And here we are.

Since Wednesday morning, when America awoke to a second Trump term, I’ve seen and heard tremendous bewilderment and fear expressed by Harris supporters because their candidate lost. I’ve also heard bewilderment and hurt expressed by Trump supporters—some I know personally—because the Harris supporters close to them have renounced their relationships, cut them off and cast them out like a pair of smelly old shoes, good only for the garbage. Yes, apparently they might actually be garbage. (Can we ask where they got that idea?) Here’s a meme version of their logic:

And another version:

Beyond their implicit drama, what’s obvious about these memes is how their logic is situated in sanctimony, wrapped in the cashmere of self-congratulation. Like a taproot, it’s embedded deep and thick in absolute, unadulterated certainty. Certainty that in 2024 America, the losing side are The Loving People and the winning side are The Hateful People. This solid certainty exudes comforting grade school judgment: white versus black—no foggy gray, no icky ambiguity, no exhausting emotional energy required to parse the messy complexity of flawed candidates and competing priorities. If the stakes weren’t so serious it would be comical how the apostles of inclusion, the champions of no boundaries—whether for traditional morality, biological reality, or national sovereignty—have suddenly pivoted to gated friendships and purity tests. But inside the Left’s deep blue landscape, it seems anything goes. (Except Trump voters.)

Beyond the moral certitude of the people claiming Hate Has No Home with them, I see another glaring feature of their panicked disposition: uncuriousness. The following self-portrait of emotional anguish was released to the world by its author, a self-exiled daughter who discovered her father is a Trump voter just days before the election (watch here; language warning):

For those who’d rather not witness it firsthand, here’s the script of her tearful tirade:

I hate you, you orange f*ing pumpkin. You just cost me one of the most important people in my life—my dad. Donald Trump, I HATE you! You will never be president again! You b*st*rd, you costed me my dad. My dad was the most important person in the world to me, but now his colors are finally out. I hate you, you f*ing orange pumpkin b*tch! <weeping> I hate you, you stupid, stupid failed f*ing businessman! <spits> You f*ing sicken me, you and all your f*ing Trump supporters. F*k you!!

When I happened upon this video a day before the election my immediate feelings were sympathy and horror. Sympathy for her father as much as for her, and horror that this young woman’s mind is so clearly captured. Her unhinged repudiation of her father—“the most important person in the world” to her—due to her discovery that he does not share her antipathy for Trump unmistakably signals brainwashing. Because, she’s not overwrought with disappointment about Trump winning the election. That hadn’t happened yet. Her expletive-laced, ugly-crying meltdown-made-for-social-media is about her shock and grief that someone she loves so dearly supports someone she despises so fiercely. Seriously, you’d think Trump was basically Hitler. (Does she? And where would she get that idea?)

Even more striking, though, is her unquestioned belief that her father’s position on Trump is the proof of his character and integrity, his moral stature. “But now his colors are finally out.” This statement, more than anything, reveals her ideological captivity. Because it’s the very definition of indoctrination to be so caught up in a belief system, so unable to think independently of it, that a beloved, pivotal relationship, with all its emotional power and historical weight, is precipitously ended to maintain the faith. Real human connection is sacrificed rather than deference to groupthink reevaluated.

Considering the depths of her devastation, the pain of her loss, one has to wonder at her strange readiness to assume the worst of her dear dad—that all along he’d been deceiving her, hiding his true colors—rather than simply give him the benefit of the doubt. She’s unwilling to imagine he might have a trustworthy perspective on Trump, some unknown knowledge which she might query to discover something new and helpful. This utter dearth of curiosity operates from the same rigid, unblinking certainty underpinning the meme logic. She would rather reject the evidence of her eyes and ears—discard the reality of her entire lived experience of her beloved father—than actually trust his character and perhaps question the received knowledge of her tribe. It’s unbelievable. And heartbreaking. And she’s not the only Harris voter playing out this sad drama.

But that’s propaganda for you. As I said in my essay last week, none of us knows what we do not know. That is why curiosity is so crucial. It’s the key to maintaining an open mind, expanding our understanding and growing into deeper truth. It’s the impetus to overcoming the discomfort of that quest. Propaganda kills curiosity, though. It constructs a totalizing filter through which its targets see and presume they have all the information they need—the full explanation, the big picture, all the relevant details. It spins not just a believable story, but a convincing one. Steeped in fiction . . . but laced with just enough verifiable facts and recognizable truth to deaden the instinct to doubt, quash the impulse to question, to investigate.

In a social media thread last week, which unspooled in response to my initial political essay on The Problem of Only a Handful, I said this about the corporate media’s role in cultivating the Democrats’ profound fear of Trump:

As far as I'm concerned, it is the corporate media who are doing their darnedest to demonize Trump and anyone who votes for him. It is Trump-fearing democrats who are being manipulated by a steady stream of carefully curated clips and commentary aimed at creating a terrifying mythology like the "very fine people" hoax.

In response, someone pushed back:

I’ve said this before, the media is not responsible for my thoughts about Trump. It’s the countless actual words that have come out of his mouth, NOT “carefully curated clips”. His words alone scare me, offend me, and upset me.

I think this is quite a widely held view and it’s also quite unrealistic. In other words: false. Because only those people (if they exist) who are sitting through every one of Trump’s speeches is truly hearing him uncurated. Of course, the idea that Trump’s words might offend or upset someone is a perfectly unremarkable claim; for sure, his content and form are not for everyone. (In fact, there’s plenty about how his speaks that even many of his supporters find off-putting or offensive, myself included.) But the issue of being scared by him is something different. That is where the information purveyors . . . curators . . . propagandists come in. There’s simply no way to escape the reality that what comes out of legacy news and commentary outlets (or from friends who watch, listen, read, and share it) is shaped by editorial decisions beholden to corporate interests. These curations are what form too many people’s understanding of the world around them, and of Trump especially. So while their fear is real, its source is not. It’s mostly fiction. A literal dystopian novel—A Handmaid’s Tale.

There’s always more to say on the topic of Trump’s brand of communication and the propaganda soaked legacy media, but it’s getting late, so I’ll just leave you with this well-spoken essay by a former climate change activist turned liberal champion of free speech. The text is paywalled, but clicking on the link allows readers to watch or listen to the author share (most of) his cogent explanation for what motivated so very many Trump voters. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, blindness, hate, superiority, twisted morals, or—what else? Oh yeah, lack of empathy.

Why Trump’s Victory Is, For Millions Of Us, Cathartic