Once there were people who wanted to openly decry the way life was changing. They didn’t like having to worry about the feelings or safety of others. They were afraid when people who looked different to them moved into their neighborhoods. They hated others who didn’t speak the same language or worship the same god because those differences made them uncomfortable. Feeling uncomfortable meant feeling confused and insecure, meaning uncomfortable was bad. So those others were bad.
These people wanted everything to stay the same, even if that meant the others were hurt. The others didn’t matter; the people cared only about their feelings & property, their money, their families, their lives. They were willing to believe anything that validated their fear & lack of empathy, which they knew, deep down, was not good. But they clung to it anyway, because it was familiar and comfortable and meant they didn’t have to deal with change.
The fear of change and frustration of not being able to openly say that change was bad burned in these people, for years, for decades, until they could take it no more. Almost as if by a miracle, at this moment, a man came to them and said: “Your fear is right. Your hate of the others is right. Change is bad. We should be able to put everything back the way it was, when the others were not welcome or protected. That’s when things were good. You remember, don’t you? When you felt safe. When you felt in charge. When you felt strong and smart. When you were comfortable. Follow me, and we will make it that way again, no matter who we have to hurt to make it happen. All that matters is that you be able to speak & act the way that makes you happy. Because you matter more than the others.”
And the people rejoiced. They deified this man because he was a miracle to them for telling them they were right and good for feeling hate for the others. They felt lighter and happier than they had in a long time because this man spoke as one with them and praised them for their selfishness. He exemplified selfishness in every way, and they envied him his arrogance and confidence and freedom to be and speak in ways that they knew were not kind or respectful. They idolised him.
So they began to live in his image. They spoke to the others with contempt, derision, and coarse and repugnant language. He praised them more. He held rallies where they could all come together and share their hate, their anger, their desire for control over a world that was changing and scary. He told them he loved them for sharing his hate, anger, and disrespect of the others. At first, some of the people questioned some of the things he stated as fact, because they knew they weren’t true. But he kept telling them how wonderful they were, how they were right to want to hurt the others, and they really, really wanted to hurt the others. So they stopped questioning. It was easier to believe him. He would keep praising them and loving them if only they just accepted, wilfully and completely, everything he said. And they wanted to feel safe, loved, and good. So they did all that he asked.
When he asked them to direct hate at a specific one of the others, they did it gleefully. They would send horrible messages, threaten to kill the children of the specific one, to rape them, to murder them.
When he celebrated “the good old days” when police could beat peaceful protestors almost to death, and promised to pay for legal fees for anyone who attacked protestors, some of the people happily punched, grabbed, pushed anyone they decided was an other. They took to the streets, burning crosses and waving flags of hate and oppression, driving cars into the others who came out to tell them they were wrong for doing it. And he told them they were “very good people.”
The people believed every thing the man told them. When he said wearing face masks during a health emergency was a sign of being an other, the people rejected them and hurt others who asked them to wear them. When the man told them to liberate their states, the people took guns to state capitols, threatening to abduct and lynch publicly elected officials who spoke out against him, who wanted safety measures, who were concerned about the safety of all the people and all the others.
The man said he loved them for these actions, the unleashing of the violence and hatred that they had carried silently for so long. And so their dedication to him deepened.
But the man did not love them. He knew the people were useful to him and so he used them. They gave him access to power and money, which were the only things he truly loved. And they idolised him for it, which fed his ego and unrelenting need for acceptance and love (something he never got from his parents). He had been taught that power and money meant worth, that he was unworthy of love without them. The people gave him those things. But he despised them for their blind adoration, their wilful ignorance of his true nature. He had no respect for them or their needs, their feelings, their lives. To him, they were the others. And because they were the others, they deserved no respect, no empathy, no concern for their safety. He would get what he needed from them & discard them.
And the people loved him for it.
Are You Listening? 