Opinion: Challenge of this election surviving without hate

The biggest challenge to this election year will not be deciding between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Ninety percent of us already have our minds made up on that.

No, the biggest challenge will be surviving the campaign and election without coming to hate each other.

Granted, some of us already do. Some can’t differentiate between a person’s politics and their humanity. I know families in which one person no longer speaks with another family member because one of them drank the Trump Kool-Aid or the other is preaching Wokeness. I’ll bet you know one or two such wars on the home front yourself.

Our political and culture wars are dividing us, but it’s extremism that’s making those divisions seem irreparable. This year, we’ll see a rise in extremism whether we want to or not.

Thankfully, most of us aren’t extremists; we might shake our heads in wonder about the ignorance of the other side, and we might even hate the other side in general, but we don’t necessarily hate them individually.

That neighbor who puts up a Trump or Biden sign in his yard may be misguided or even deranged in our minds, but he’s got other redeeming qualities, and most of us can see him as a person. Maybe even a good person. But, of course, we’ve got to see beyond his Trump or Biden sign to get there.

I’ll be honest with you: I hate Donald Trump. Hate him and all he stands for. But I don’t hate those who support him. If I did, I’d be a bitter, bitter old man.

Instead, for better or worse, I reserve my hatred for Trump and, if I’m being totally honest, some of his supporters I don’t know.

Hatred is not something I was raised to embrace, and yet there it is. I was fortunate to have been raised with the Christian values of love, charity and “the brotherhood of man,” so whenever I start feeling hatred and hostility toward another human being, I feel wrong in doing so. After all, isn’t that what Christians are supposed to be about, loving everyone and leaving “judgment day” up to God?

Then again, maybe that’s not what Christianity is about anymore. At least not to the Christian Nationalists who are making their extreme, condemnation-packed voices heard this election season. For those who await the Second Coming to set us all straight, I ask, are you sure you’re on God’s side? Your behavior suggests otherwise.

But, while I may despise the evangelical Christian movement as a whole, I don’t hate its followers as individuals. At least not the ones I’ve gotten to know personally through the years.

Countering our hatred for one another by getting to know each other may be the right thing to do, but it is easier said than done these days. Hyperbolic media, combined with mental laziness and spiritually selling out, are pushing us into a tribal mentality, where it’s us against them, good against evil, humans vs. subhumans.

Incredibly, many have even gone so far as to suspend their common sense just to believe their side is right.

That’s how desperate the times are.

If we want to stop a civil war, we must see and know each other individually. Then maybe we won’t pull the trigger.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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