The Ubiquity of Hate in America

Of course, we all want to hear what psychiatrists think of hate speech. OK, maybe it's just a lot of us. And we are drawn to read what Dr. Richard Friedman, a senior New York psychiatrist has to say about the subject.

And yet, before reading a word of his New York Times column we already suspect the worst. Friedman is not really going to address hate speech in America. He is going to compromise his professional integrity by limiting the scope of his analysis to the words of one single individual: President Donald Trump. Naturally, he does not quote a line of Trumpian hate speech... because his readers take it as dogma that Trump is the source of all American hate.

Instead of examining hate speech like a professional, Friedman preaches to the choir. He is addressing himself to leftist New Yorkers-- is there any other kind?-- who want to blame everything that is going wrong on Trump.

If a fanatic who hates Trump because Trump is too close to Israel opens fire in a synagogue, the fault lies with Trump. If the only foreign or domestic government official who attended the meeting between Trump and the Pittsburgh rabbi whose congregation was subjected to the violence was the Israeli Ambassador to America, that can only mean that Trump is fomenting hatred toward Jews.

Friedman's purpose, if you wish to call it this, is to allow New York Jews to feel that, in hating Trump, they are fighting anti-Semitism. He is selling an illusion, a bromide to help people to forget the fact that they happily supported the notable anti-Semite Jeremiah Wright’s protege in the White House. And he is helping them to understand that when Barack Obama chose to fund Iranian terrorism against Jews, it was because he was fighting anti-Semitism. And he is helping them to soothe their consciences about the fact that the Obama administration, as a parting gesture, betrayed Israel at the United Nations.

As for the Trump administration record on Israel… Friedman knows nothing about it and has nothing to say.

Friedman says nothing about leftist Americans who have been fomenting anti-Semitic hatred. He does not mention Rev. Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Al Sharpton or Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As for the anti-Semitism that infests the British Labour Party or the anti-Semitism that is routinely promoted by Muslims, in Europe and even in America, Friedman has nothing to say. Blinded by reality, we should say. Trafficking in illusions, we would also say.

As for the hate that is all around us, the American media has been running stories about how best to murder President Trump. A comedienne was photographed holding the severed head of Trump. Is that not hate? What about a media that has skewed its news reporting to make Trump look bad… nearly all the time. Today’s American media does not even pretend to be objective when reporting on Trump.

It was not too long ago, and it was certainly recent enough for Friedman to remember, but what does he think about the vitriol launched by leftist groups against now Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The will to destroy Kavanaugh and his family was so over-the-top that even mild-mannered Congresspeople had to stand up and denounce it. Keep in mind, United States senators were leading the charge. Democratic senators like Harris, Whitehouse, Feinstein, Blumenthal and Booker were completely out of control. They had no arguments. They practiced no decorum. They were on a mission to destroy Brett Kavanaugh. Dare we call it hate?

What effect did that have on the national psyche? Friedman has nothing to say. He has nothing to say about Hillary Clinton’s call for incivility, about Eric Holder’s call to kick his opponents, about the mobs of Antifa radicals who have been destroying public property.

If you are going to talk about hate speech, the few remarks of Donald Trump recede in importance when placed against the climate of non-stop vitriol against Trump. From the halls of Congress to the media, Trump has received far more hate than he has handed out.

One understands that Trump has belittled and demeaned and demonized his opponents, but, what sentient individual living in America today does not know that the Democratic Party and its satraps in the media have done nothing but demonize Trump. How many times has he been called a fascist, a Nazi, Hitler, the Antichrist, worse than Hitler? How many times has he been called a bigot or worse? And, if we would like some perspective, the Democratic hate machine said all of the same things about mild-mannered George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. It's demonization central.

Do you really think that this does not contribute to a climate of hate in today’s America. If you don’t, take off your blinders.

So, when you talk about the dangers of hate, you need, if you wish to maintain any integrity at all, to offer something resembling balance. On that score Friedman fails.

On another point, he is correct:

We know that repeated exposure to hate speech can increase prejudice, as a series of Polish studies confirmed last year. It can also desensitize individuals to verbal aggression, in part because it normalizes what is usually socially condemned behavior.

But, what about the hate that is routinely directed toward those who are considered to be bigots. What about the outrage and the hate directed by feminists like Rebecca Traister against males of the species? Does that count?

Of course, Friedman and his experts believe that disenfranchised white people are the source of all violence in America. And that Trump’s bigotry is setting them on the path to commit acts of violence. And yet, has he or any of his experts ever asked who is committing acts of criminal violence in America. How they ever looked at statistics to see who is more or less likely to commit crime in America?

Obviously, they have not. That would require them to examine facts and statistics. And such an effort is obviously a threat to their bias and their ideology. Let's not call it science.