The Name-Calling Needs To Stop, For The Good Of All

I think I've figured out all the “hate group” labels I've seen all too often these days.

Back up to 2016, following the Presidential Primary. From the Primary to the General Election, a consortium of those opposed to Donald Trump – Democrats, disenfranchised Bernie Sanders supporters, so-called “never-Trumpers”, etc.) thought they had the election in the bag. There was absolutely no way Donald Trump could ever get elected President. Come the General Election, Trump won enough Electoral College votes to win. The disbelief from the opposition was not only palpable, but enough to cast a pall of PTSD-like trauma on social media outlets and most TV networks.

From the Left, questions were asked, and a new game-plan sought. “How the hell did THAT guy get elected? How can we recover? What can we do to show everyone that his supporters were wrong to vote for him and not OUR candidate?”

I could go into a lot of detail of how the media fomented the divisive behavior we see today, but let's stick to the issue in simplest terms, for those who don't want to read paragraph upon paragraph.

Those who didn't vote for Trump felt betrayed. They are emotionally hurt to this day. I fully understand hurt emotions, and how they can consume one's perspective. Think back to grade school. If someone deeply hurt your feelings – made you question what is right and just in the world – shake your everything, you likely would do what most grade school kids did... Call the person or people who did that names.

After the General Election, it was implied that anyone who voted for Trump must have been a homophobe, Islamophobe, racist, etc. It was a means to justify hurt feelings over the election outcome. Didn't like the election result? Give the opposition a demeaning label, and – like magic – you are on the moral, right, and just side of history.

Fast forward to recently, when the Charlottesville crap went down. A handful of White Supremacists scheduled a rally, some people showed up to support Free Speech (NOT the White Supremacists), Antifa showed up to counter-protest, and everyone who wasn't Antifa was labeled as a Nazi. Not a neo-Nazi (a reprehensible movement of hatred), but an actual Nazi (Democratic Socialist Party member).

Now, anyone who does not tow the hard-Left ideology is being labeled as Nazi. In addition, any statue or monument that does not fit the hard-Left ideology is being labeled as racist, and calls are going out nationwide to have them taken down. To make matters worse, conservatives (from Republican to Libertarian to whatever, including conservatives who are black, Jewish, etc.) who publicly denounce racism are still being branded as Nazis by the far-Left, and the mainstream Left is starting to follow suit.

Why? On the surface, it makes no sense whatsoever. Anyone who knows anything about history recognizes That Nazism has no context in modern-day society, that neo-Nazis are shunned by people across the political spectrum, and the number of true neo-Nazis in the United States is minuscule. What we are left with is an emotionally-damaged populace and media that looks to justify their ideology by assigning labels of evil (racism) to a large populace who do not have racism in their hearts.

What we are seeing will only serve to further divide out country. Not over racial issues, but over hurt feelings, name-calling, and detraction over issues that have nothing to do with bigotry.

I'm no Democrat. I'm no Republican, either. Ask any friend of family member - I don't have a bigoted bone in my body. But by calling out the “label everything racist” movement, I will (likely) be called a racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, sexist, or whatever. It's all the anti-Trumpers have left in their playbook. I have deep respect for elements of the Democratic Party (read: classical Democrats). I only hope they can move past name-calling as a means to show voters what they can offer. I also hope that the evidence I've seen of moderate Democrats buying the “everyone is a racist” garbage spewed by the Hard Left will diminish.

In the end (I think), Party Politics has nothing to do with being a good neighbor, being a good friend, or being a good family member. I find it so sad that there is such a clamor to use hurt feelings over the election to give labels of evil to people who just wanted to exercise their right to vote for the person they thought would help the country best.

We are bigger than name-calling, aren't we?