How the Left Learned to Hate Like the Right
By MICHELLE GOLDBERG APRIL 29, 2017
MARIETTA, GA. — Shortly before President Trump’s swearing-in, I spoke to Steve Cohen, a liberal congressman from Tennessee, about his decision to skip the ceremony. Mr. Cohen said his horror of Mr. Trump almost made him understand how Tea Partyers might have felt under President Barack Obama. “I want my country back!” he said, echoing the right’s rallying cry.
One hundred days into his administration, President Trump has few legislative achievements to his name. But he has forced liberals to experience the near-apocalyptic revulsion that conservatives have often felt toward Democratic presidents. In doing so, he has unwittingly created a new movement in American politics, as Democrats channel the sort of all-encompassing outrage that has long fueled grass-roots conservatism.
For decades, Democrats have envied the Republicans’ passionate, locally attuned base. It turns out that what Democrats were missing was a sense of existential emergency. Mr. Trump has provided it.
Objectively, there’s no comparison between the conservative demonization of Mr. Obama and the progressive case against Mr. Trump. People on the right saw Mr. Obama as a Kenyan-born secret Muslim with a hidden agenda to hobble American power and a health care reform plan to establish “death panels.” None of that is true.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/opinion/sunday/how-the-left-learned-to-hate-like-the-right.html?emc=edit_th_20170430&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284
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