Seventeen questions about hate

by Patrick T. Reardon

 

 

 

If I believe that Donald Trump is bad

for the United States and the rest of the world

because he is expresses so much hate,

should I hate him

and all the people who voted for him?

 

If I believe that Trump fosters hate for his own ego,

stirs up hate among Americans for his own enjoyment

of power and spite without regard

to the noxious harm it causes,

should I hate him

and all of the people who voted for him?

If I believe that, in his hate, Trump demonizes

many innocent people — such as immigrants,

such as women, such as transgender people,

such as scientists, such as judges, such as

Democrats, Jews, environmentalists, Black people,

soldiers killed in battle, soldiers held as POWs,

Muslims, Haitians, reporters, election workers

and so on —

should I demonize him

and all the people who voted for him?

 

If I believe that Trump takes pride

in demeaning those he makes his targets

and asserting that they are of no value

— indeed, are dangerous because they do not

follow him in lockstep —

should I, in my pride, demean him

and all of those who voted for him?

 

If I believe that Trump engages

in hateful name-calling that divides our country

simply for the sake of division and the power

that such division gives to him,

should I call him

and his followers names?

 

Should I meet hate with hate?

 

If I hate the people who voted for Trump,

will I make things better?

Or will I be following the lead of Trump

and playing into his hands?

 

If I meet his hate with my hate

and demean everyone who voted for him

and call them names and demonize them

— indeed, call them dangerous

because they do not think as I do —

will I make things better?

 

Does hate make things better?

 

Should I meet hate with humility?

 

Should I set hate aside and humbly accept

that the people who voted for Trump

are human beings like me and

are not inhuman devils and

had their reasons for choosing him on the ballot?

 

Should I set hate aside and humbly accept that,

because I know very few people who voted for Trump,

I don’t know why they voted that way?

 

Should I set hate aside and humbly accept

that I need to be quiet and listen

when someone who voted for Trump

— someone I meet —

has something to say about their reasons

for thinking he was a better candidate?

 

That I need to be quiet and listen

to let them show me what their life is like

and how they came to the decision to vote for Trump?

 

That, instead of demonizing them, I need

to be quiet and listen to them as human beings

who want to live a good life

and want, like all of us, to lighten their burdens?

 

Should I meet hate with humility?

 

 

Patrick T. Reardon

12.17.24

This poem originally appeared as an essay in the Chicago Tribune on 11.15.24.