Imagine a hiker who hates magnetic north.
No matter where the compass points, he insists it is wrong.
He shouts at the needle, curses the map, and swears that only fools follow it.
And then he gets lost, blaming others for not getting lost with him.
That is where we are politically. America has always lived with disagreement.
But something changed with the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections. Disagreement morphed into disgust, and disgust hardened into derangement. And now, for an alarming number of Americans, hatred of Donald J. Trump has become not just a political view but a personality trait.
And it is poisoning us.
Hatred as Identity
A psychological term for this kind of behavior is negative identity formation. It means defining yourself not by what you believe, but by what you reject.
No figure in modern history has inspired more obsessive rejection than Donald Trump.
This is not new in the broad sweep of politics. Nixon had his enemies, so did Reagan, and Bush was burned in effigy. But those reactions were tethered, however tenuously, to policy, war, or recession.
Today, it is far more visceral. The hatred is not rooted in disagreement over tax rates or tariffs. It is rooted in disdain for the man and anyone who supports him. Trump’s haters do not say, “I disagree with his trade policy.” They say, “I hate everything he stands for. I hate him.”
It is no longer enough to oppose.
They must loathe.
The Silos of the Self-Righteous
The digital age has transformed these private prejudices into algorithm-fed echo chambers. Social media platforms reward outrage. The more incendiary your opinion, the more engagement you get.
That means the loudest voices against Trump are often the most unhinged (DeNiro or Obermann, anyone?).
Through sheer repetition, they convince themselves that the worst lies about Trump must be true.
Russia.
White supremacy.
Kids in cages.
A dictator in waiting.
The facts do not matter.
They mock his supporters as rubes. Flyover state cultists. Toothless. Sexist. Racist. And so, they build their entire worldview on the idea that Trump is uniquely evil and they alone are virtuous enough to oppose him.
This is not reason. It is religion.
And Trump hatred is their liturgy.
When Dissent Becomes Destruction
Years ago, a city manager told me something I have never forgotten. “Government works because of disagreement,” he said. “You need the tension. The different views. That is where good policy comes from.”
He was right.
But today’s disagreement is not policy-based.
It is personal.
And it is destructive.
Take the border. When Trump reinstated strong immigration enforcement, his critics screamed racism. When Biden reversed it, leading to chaos, the same people blamed Trump.
When Trump’s tariffs brought China to the table, they called it economic suicide. Now that those deals are reaping benefits, they are suddenly silent.
Healthy dissent helps democracy. But when opposition becomes reflexive and a gut reaction to everything a president does, that is no longer civic engagement.
That is sabotage.
And it comes at a steep price.
Trump’s Success Is Their Nightmare
Let us be honest. Trump is not polished. He is not a wordsmith. He can be brash and bombastic, and sometimes he tweets like a man with a grudge and a Red Bull.
But he did more in four years to reset American priorities than most presidents do in eight.
He stood up to China, brokered historic peace deals in the Middle East, reignited manufacturing in forgotten towns, and gave voice to people whom both parties had dismissed for decades.
And for that, he was hated.
Why? Because the left had already cast him as a villain before he ever took office. The Hollywood crowd, the media elite, and the tenured radicals could not allow him to succeed.
Because if he did, their worldview would collapse.
So they built walls, not at the border, but around their minds.
The Media: High Priests of the Cult
If you ever doubt that the hatred of Trump is choreographed, just look at your screen.
When President Trump met with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office just days ago, he did something unimaginable to the American press: He told the truth. Trump showed evidence of systemic violence against white farmers, the mounting death toll, and land seizures ignored by most Western outlets. Genocide does not sell as well as grievance politics, especially when it challenges the progressive narrative.
And what was the media’s reaction? Outrage? Alarm?
No.
They ran interference. One after another, legacy outlets from The Washington Post to NBC repeated the exact phrase: “Trump ambushed the president of South Africa.” Not “Trump exposed genocide.” Not “Trump confronted brutal violence.” No. It was framed as an ambush.
When dozens of supposedly independent news organizations use the same word, we are not witnessing journalism; we are witnessing programming.
This is not the press reporting events. It is the press sculpting public opinion. And they did not choose their words by accident. They chose them because the truth would have made Trump look compassionate, informed, and morally courageous, and that simply cannot be allowed.
In their eyes, Trump can never be the good guy.
If he rescues a drowning child, they will complain that he got his shirt wet.
Do We Still Need Their Perspective?
Yes. But only if it is grounded in something more than hatred.
America thrives on disagreement. It is how we check our assumptions, refine our arguments, and shape better ideas.
But disagreement must come from goodwill and reason, not malice.
When your only political motivation is rage, your arguments become brittle. You cannot engage. You can only attack.
We do not need to silence these people. But we need to ask: What are they for? Can they describe a positive vision for the country?
Or are they only capable of tearing down those who build?
Related: In Defense of Scientific Curiosity: A Response to Bigfoot Skepticism
The Cost of Contempt
Hatred does not deform our enemies. It deforms us.
Your mind is no longer your own when you lose the ability to recognize good because of who delivers it. You are a slave to emotion, not a steward of reason.
If Trump brokered peace in Korea tomorrow, half the country would say he did it to distract from a traffic ticket.
If he cured cancer, CNN would spin it as a threat to undertakers.
This is not politics. It is pathology.
And it must end.
Closing Thought
America is a big country, built by big-hearted people who disagreed often but never stopped loving their country. We can survive poor policies, but we cannot survive mass contempt.
Trump will be judged by voters, not by hashtags.
But the people who wake up every morning with a fire in their chest and his name on their lips should ask themselves: If he is so awful, why do you still let him live rent-free in your head?
Many of them need Trump more than they will ever admit. He gives their lives purpose. He provides their outrage focus.
And without him, they might have to look in the mirror.
And that is a far scarier sight.
