What I don't understand is why Rethugs are so full of hatred

[vlyons]

They cultivate hatred 24 x 7. They hate liberals, Dems, government, gun laws, business & industry regulations, public schools, equal pay for women, EPA, poor people, non-whites.

I think that basically they hate life in general, because life ain't fair. Life is difficult and full of disappointments, and they are filled with envy for others, who they see as better off, luckier. There is little, if any, loving kindness and empathy for others in them. It seems the worship of the almighty dollar and the power to get it is all that matters to them.

[JI7]

1. Resentment

[PortTack]

2. "Life is fair because everyone complains it isn't." Bernie Segal MD

[Wounded Bear]

3. More than anything else, they hate themselves above all...

[TwilightZone]

4. That was my first thought.

There's a lot of self-loathing going on.

[hatrack]

5. Endorphins . . . it's like first-person shooter games

I never got that much into gaming, and when I did, I found it frightening.

For a few weeks I was playing a lot of Quake (this was a long time ago). What I noticed is that when I was falling asleep, or waking up, my hands would be twitching as they would if using the mouse and keyboard, and I'd flash briefly on images from the game as if I were playing it.

That's why I quit - I didn't like the idea of willingly rewiring my own brain and further conditioning myself by spending even more time on the computer so that I could get to the next level or slay the next monster. Paying for the privilege made it even more weird and skeevy.

Members of the GQP discovered the same endorphin hit through Hate TV, Hate Radio and Hate Internet. They didn't stop. They wanted more. Eventually they needed more, millions and millions and millions of them, all rewired to hate, like so many Pavlov's Dogs with cars and jobs and kids and 401(k)s.

And here we are.

[vlyons]

9. I never considered how hate might stimulate endorphins

I want to learn more about that

[ScratchCat]

6. Part of it can be explained by the saying

"When you are doing all the pointing, nobody is looking at you"

A poster above mentioned "self-loathing". That's a major part for the religious contingency.

[Moostache]

7. This is one of the central tenets of Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club"...

“We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

In short, crass consumerism has replaced everything - romance, dating, sexual politics, desires, satisfaction, empathy...all torn asunder in worship of the next "thing"...phone, dress, bag, suit, shoes, object, possession.

We live in the world where what you rent (do NOT be fooled by the quaint concept of 'ownership', you take with you exactly what you brought with you into this world - NOTHING!) defines your self-worth and social status to an incredibly harmful extent. Buying stuff and temporarily possessing things is not a path to happiness, like heroin or other drugs, the initial high is never replicated but always chased...

[pazzyanne]

8. Spot on description of my republican sister.

She wasn't like this when younger. Her devolution happened over a period of 20 years, ending with DJT. She really "withered under his influence. Her anti-Biden posts are shameful considering her worship of the previous president. I am beginning to think there is no hope of her recoving. Sadly, my middle brother has joined her in her hate. I grieve for their younger selves.

[gratuitous]

15. This really encapsulated it for me

It's not enough for them to succeed, but that others must fail. And not just some amorphous mass of "others," but certain, identifiable, named others must suffer in order for their success to be truly validated.

Steve Benen did a story about it here.

Trump voter: 'He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting'

Jan. 8, 2019, 7:43 AM PST / Updated Jan. 8, 2019, 7:46 AM PST
By Steve Benen

The New York Times published an interesting report over the weekend on the real-world effects of Donald Trump's trade war, highlighting some of those who feeling the greatest pinch.

* * *

The quote came to mind this morning, reading a new article from the New York Times today on Jackson County, Fla., in the state's panhandle, which was already struggling in the wake of Hurricane Michael, but which is now also feeling the adverse effects of Trump's government shutdown. The piece included this anecdote:

A few miles away, another prison employee, Crystal Minton, accompanied her fiancé to a friend's house to help clear the remnants of a metal roof mangled by the hurricane. Ms. Minton, a 38-year-old secretary, said she had obtained permission from the warden to put off her Mississippi duty until early February because she is a single mother caring for disabled parents. Her fiancé plans to take vacation days to look after Ms. Minton's 7-year-old twins once she has to go to work. The shutdown on top of the hurricane has caused Ms. Minton to rethink a lot of things."I voted for him, and he's the one who's doing this," she said of Mr. Trump. "I thought he was going to do good things. He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."

There's nothing more damning that I could possibly add to Ms. Minton's comment.

[pazzyanne]

16. Thank you for sharing, gratuitous.

[vlyons]

19. and McConnell wants to sink Biden's infrastructure plan with every trick he knows

They can't let Biden, or any Dem, be successful, no matter how much it would help our country. A successful Dem administration would be a terrible contrast to what all they have failed to accomplish, and instead have degraded & destroyed.

[uponit7771]

29. They've been told its OK to think illogically. Listen and repeat back at first then slowly challenge

... the logic of their reasoning which is mostly what they've heard and not what they've come up with.

A lot of people don't a person they trust challenge their logic and world with facts,

Look at the sources they go to and agree on some while holding your ground on others.

You'll get to a consensus with them and that logic will eventually stick

It's mostly they work or live around a bunch of stank thinking that's reinforced among themselves

[Polly Hennessey]

10. They are followers. If you are a follower

you are also a resenter

[Celerity]

12. Oh so true. Wish I could expound and expand upon that further, but it wouldn't be prudent, lol.

Great reply.

[Initech]

11. What I don't get is why they pride themselves on being jerks and assholes.

Like if you call them an asshole, they become stronger because of it. Seriously...

[Celerity]

17. Their theme song, and for them it isn't satire, it's a celebration

[Claire Oh Nette]

13. Right Wing Radio

30 years of Rush Limbaugh and his imitators whining on air that it's hard out there for a white guy. Grievance radio backed by lack of facts designed to gin up outrage against Democrats when they are in power, and then democrats for daring to run for office against republicans.

Fox News Entertainment services in every basic cable package, with a 24/7 barrage of white grievance and outrage at progress.

A "liberal" media which spins all news through the lens of Republicans as the default position. Even when Democrats are popular and popularly elected (oh, wait, they're always populalry elected), they govern as centrists but are covered as though they are Far Left.

Anger drives ratings. Outrage drives ratings. Magnification of oddities drives outrage--one transwoman won a scholarship in track and field, and suddenly, the right is oh so concerned with parity and equality and in college sports? A transwoman might want to use a public restroom where she disappears into a private stall to do her business and we must protect the children?

The GOP and its propaganda channels are the modern equivalent of the Carnival Freak Show. Show the freakiest of freaks 24/7 and convince the rural rubes they're being invaded and then watch the advertising collars roll in as rating climb.

When the news rooms were required to make a profit, news of the day became outrage of the day. Oh, we got our news, weather, and sports, but more often we got news analysis and opinion. As cable offered more channels, we stayed in our own lanes, listening and watching what we liked, what agreed with us, isolating into silos of likeness, chambers of echos.

The use of war metaphors in sports coverage. Covering politics like sports, us vs them, along with merging right wing politics with evangelical religious fervor brings us a class of house representatives and governors and wannabes like Boebert, Cawthorn, Greene, Gaetz, Cruz, Goehmert, Palin, Noem, DeSantis, Abbott, Bachman, even Pence, and the rest of the Tea Party/MAGA crowd. Not one interested in solutions for existing problems or improving American lives, but all interested in self promotion and heckling and being on television.

We have no Uncle Walter, who gave it to us straight, appealing to logic, reason, fact. We have perpetual drama queens appealing to anger and fear.

Boo.

[Cosmocat]

22. YEP did not start overnight

Now, they are predisposed to having a victim mentality and ingrained biases against different people (gender, race, religion, etc.), but the right has been tweaking this shit in people for political advantage as long as I can remember, going into the mid 80s. I still remember going to the gym to workout in 1992 and they had fucking Rush LIMBAUGH on ... I didn't get it, but I looked around and realized that most everyone there was digging it.

So, the people my age have marinated themselves in the bullshit their entire lives and then had kids who they indoctrinated into it. All off the elected officials have been similarly consumed by it, and now know it as reality, whereas there were many in the 80s/90s who know the game and and were willing to let it go for political advantage, but many of the ones now are full on fucking freaks.

[malaise]

14. Ot's called

For Profit Hatred

[Aviation Pro]

18. Because they are still pissed off....

...that the glory days of high school didn't follow them into adult life.

Cue up Springsteen and that's who he's talking about.

[Claire Oh Nette]

23. Ding ding ding

This is a large part of it. The guys I grew up with in the 80s went to work for their dads' businesses in the 90s building and renovating houses, remodeling and roofing houses, fixing and repairing plumbing in houses or buying and selling houses. Could care less about politics, but steeped in Reagan Mythology. Few voted before 2016, yet they were all constitutional law experts in 2018 and felt entitled to opine on what was and wasn't sexual assault. They boned up on virology and epidemiology, and were experts on the electoral college. These guys were C students at best, because they needed to make grades to play.

It goes back even further, I think, to their parents in the Vietnam era 1960s. The Hawks resented the fun the Doves were having. The free love/sexual revolution hippies and the pot smokers of the 60s became Democrats, and the up tight square ROTC types became Republicans.

THey're envious of how much greener the grass is on the other side. Rather than water their own grass, they'll prevent everyone else from having green grass at all.

[bluestarone]

20. I contribute this ALL to the

RUSSIAN, lies plus the blind belief in RELIGION! You just CANNOT have a conversation with these type people! (they actually believe their GOD talks with them)

[Omnipresent]

21. Their egos of "what is white, is always right"...

Clouds their minds. As soon as we are interbred and all one uniform color, much of this hatred will end.

[unitedwethrive]

24. It has always been the party of selfishness

When my kids were young, that was easiest way to explain the difference between the two major parties. One tries to help those who are less fortunate and cares about the greater good, while the other worries just about themselves and people like them.

[hvn_nbr_2]

25. I think the problem is that your logic is backwards.

It's not that Repubs are full of hate. It's that people full of hate naturally gravitate to the Repub party.

[dwayneb]

28. This is true

We don't like to admit it but the reality is that civilization is but a thin veneer over the primitive tribalism of human beings. Hate and fear are powerful motivators.

[SMC22307]

26. Decades of right-wing media brainwashing, starting with Limpballs...

back in the early '90s (at least)... THIRTY YEARS OF HATE.

[dwayneb]

27. All of the above and...

Agree with several posters here that point out the decades of brainwashing, beginning with our dead shock jock Rush Limbaugh, and talk Radio, on through the destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, the emergence of Fox News, Hannity and all the rest, finally culiminating in Trumpism, as we all know.

Fear and hate have always been the prime fuel for Fascist movements. If you go back to the emergence of Nazism in Germany it was exactly the same. Sure they used Jews and Communists as the prime target for their hate, but the mechanism was no different.

Ultimately this is about the psychology of power and control, and if it is allowed to continue unchecked it will destroy us, just like it destroyed Nazi Germany. Hate and fear are simply tools to manipulate the mush-brained populace into supporting the movement.