Is hate being normalised?

[BerylSnow]

Aibu to think hate is being normalised?

The reaction to Charlie Kirk's death by some is just shocking. But also Trump talking so casually of hate (at Kirk's funeral, no less) and the ongoing demonisation of immigrants seemingly everywhere.

How do we move on from this? I feel like we have a void of leadership (Starmer - well meaning though he may be - is a terrible leader). The same can be said of Badenoch. And into that void step people like Nigel Farage.

We are in economically difficult times historically we have see a rise of the right in economic downturns as predictably people need to apportion blame, and it typically falls on immigrants.

We need leaders (all over) to turn down the temperature, and not speak of hate and divisions but of unity.

It's a pretty grim time. Or is it? Am I actually being unreasonable?

It's mainly a distraction technique. If we're all arguing they look better than they are. It's also a way of getting more voters, but over simplifies what's going on in the world.

Yes it is normalised.

Has been for a while.

And to people the target of their hate deserves it.

I have no issue for hatred / dislike of somebody for their individual for their words and actions. But not it’s the case that hating people for who they are is increasingly the norm.

I think that the immigration thing is a bit different. Going right back to Gordon Brown rubbing the right's nose in diversity and calling that woman a bigot, the public have been anti mass immigration. Every government since has pledged to reduce numbers and then done the exact opposite. Up to a million per year under the Tories and now Labour pretending to smash the gangs. 20 years of bullshit. That's why people are annoyed about immigration. It's an easy fix for politicians. Stop lying to the electorate and do what you said you would.

"We need leaders (all over) to turn down the temperature, and not speak of hate and divisions but of unity."

I think the trouble is that "speaking of unity" doesn't actually put food on tables, or clothes on children, or pay off debt. You are right that the hate can be the symptom of general unhappiness, but the only answer is to cure the causes of the unhappiness not just paper over them by saying "be nicer...and in other news, inflation is 10% whilst your salary is going up 1%"

I guess that's my point. In a time of economic hardship, turn the hate down, not up. Yes, this doesn't affect inflation, but neither does demonising immigrants.

Just before the first world war, there was a lot of hatred and polarisation and it feels similar now in some ways. People's loyalty and national pride were said to have been manipulated. So I don't think they key point is that it is being normalised, what might be happening is that it is being intentionally manipulated.

In relation to the first world war it is interesting to read the commentary on internal propaganda after the war. Crewe House was widely criticised in some circles. Descriptions of lies and propaganda told to the British people by the government and the press was set out by Arthur Ponsonby MP in his 1928 book.

Getting people to hate people is a cynical way of bringing about war, for those who are war mongers. Muslim vs Israel vs Christianity. Immigrants vs Far Right/those who think that the government is mismanaging. Ukrainians vs Russians. Trans vs Rad Fems. How trans issues were being presented to children and inadequacies in education in other respects, ideas such as "why is literacy or education needed nowadays" being pushed to extremes sometimes by teachers. Extreme liberal vs Trump and Kirk. I could go on. And you will find in relation to extreme groups within the west are being funded to the tune of billions by certain western funders. Immigrant activists groups have funding available to the tune of billions.

It is possible that people are being manipulated towards hatred while being convinced they are fighting a righteous cause. Most of the extreme groups above which are being funded will have a sophisticated spin attached to them saying things like "we save people". When what they mean is "what we do might kill people if it ends up in war".

That might be it.

I think hate-watching and hate-reading have become more normalised than I realised.
Hate-watching a funeral is a step beyond hate-watching Fox news, and IMO there is something depraved about it.
I say this as someone who has done my own share of hate-watching / reading right wing material.

I think the word "hate" used this way is a kind of thought terminating word.

It obscures what people are really saying and automatically, it must be wrong, no one can think it's reasonable, so it means any disagreement is "you think hate is ok".

You won't get useful answers with a question like that.

Well—hate steps in precisely because its so attractive as an organizational principle —certainly for authoritarian systems that draw power from creating an us vs them scenario. You are falling prey to its seductive power when you feel dissatisfied with starmer. At least he proposes an ordinary politics without hate or violence directed at his enemies. And yet you see that the public love a bully and love a swaggering bastard. How can Starmer or any ordinary politician satisfy the blood lust of a population that demands swagger, spectacle, mob violence, and hate as the main form of political engagement and the violent rejection of “the other” snd the purification of the ethnostate as the goal?

The division and polarisation is a massive issue for sure, I do think there are under currents of fear and intolerance which is driving it. Fear underpins hate a lot of the time. It would of course be helpful to focus on those things with can unify and connect us, but that is becoming increasingly difficult in this political climate.

I have noticed that people who are against misogyny, bigotry, homophobia and racism and who express their feelings and concerns about people like Trump holding power, are then accused of ‘hate’. It has become a bizarre underhanded debate tactic, to accuse someone of ‘hate’ because they don’t agree with hateful rhetoric. This sort of gaslighting makes it difficult to have a reasonable debate or find common ground.

It was a mistake that man ever became PM in my view. Good Chancellor but Blair should have kept him out of No 10 and sod the Granita agreement.
[Sorry to derail the thread]