WHY SOME PEOPLE OF POLITICAL PERSUASION HATE OBAMA!

WHY SOME PEOPLE OF POLITICAL PERSUASION HATE OBAMA!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

“False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”

Shakespeare

Being apolitical rather than political, I wonder at all the spent energy on trying to make a rose a weed and a weed a rose. I’m thinking of President Barak Obama haters, who seemingly have an aversion to him and his presidency hoping to find a kink in his armor with a misbegotten policy, misspoken word, or some other contretemps. After all, he is our duly elected president, and will be, God willing, for the next four years. Are these haters going to look under every rock or misplaced gesture for confirmation of their malevolence?

There isn’t a single person on earth that can pass such scrutiny, especially the President of the United States. After all, he is a mere human who has come forth to lead us through these difficult times. He needs our support not our enmity.

Why such vitriolic attention? Obviously, the president doesn’t fit comfortably into caricature or stereotype. He is a graduate of the best schools in our country, former constitutional law professor, and a creative campaigner who defied tradition by upsetting the heir apparent to the presidency, Hillary Clinton. President Obama with his rhetoric, poise and calm has left the loyal opposition searching for a constituency. Even his harshest critics admit the range and depth of his intellect. Indeed, his whole persona defies those who would hold one race superior to another. That mindset will never find purchase again.

Have you ever noticed:

(1) Antipathy finds something in the hated to shoot at with a pretense to combustion?
(2) That disappointment that festers within is made the pretext of base tyrannies?
(3) When we want to punish our enemies we fasten to them our own troubles?
(4) When our hatred is irrational it sinks us lower than those we hate?
(5) That in order for our hate to register with us we must make it personal?
(6) That hate seldom focuses on the deed but instead on the person?
(7) That with hatred you take ownership of the problems of those you hate?
(8) How much easier it is to hate at a distance of someone you don’t know and will unlikely ever meet?
(9) That what we claim we hate we merely dislike?
(10) The irony of what we hate defines our character and personality?
(11) That hatred can only be cured with love?
(12) That hatred is a stooping down rather than lifting up?
(13) That it is impossible to hate someone we truly know?
(14) That hatred so often is a cause separate from our actual existence?
(15) That when you hate you enter your enemies’ prison?
(16) That hatred is a form of death and only love can restore it to life?
(17) That hate is a kind of murder of the spirit?
(18) That hatred wears out the mind as well as the body?
(19) That hatred is a shortcut to thinking why we are so bothered?

The only way to absolve oneself of hatred is self-acceptance, that is, knowing, liking and understanding why one is the person he or she is. Without such self-understanding, one is vulnerable to jargon and clipped answers to frustrating problems. The paradox that the contempt haters have for other individuals does not come close to measuring their own self-hatred. It is as impossible to be self-accepting and hating as it is for a thing to be and not be at once.

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Dr. Fisher is author of “The Taboo Against Being Your Own Best Friend.”