Political Hatred

In my almost daily walks in my quiet suburban neighborhood, I sometimes come across lawn signs that read, "HATE HAS NO HOME HERE." Nevertheless, in the past six years I have never witnessed so much hatred in my town and in my country as has been directed at former President Donald Trump. Like all hatred it seems visceral rather than reasonable. It is as if a large part of the population has received a political vaccination that enables the political immune system to form an immediate and violent reaction to even the mention of his name. 

During the election when I questioned my neighbors about their Trump animosity, they invariably replied that they just could not stand the man, no matter what he might have accomplished in office. They could not even bring themselves to acknowledge that he might have accomplished even one good thing as President. He has been our of power for more than a year but still my Internet home page features almost daily anti-Trump headlines.

I have been thinking about this Trump hatred phenomenon for awhile, and recently I found as good an explanation as I have ever read in a biography of Sir Robert Walpole, an English politician of almost 300 years ago. It would appear that Walpole was as larger than life as Donald Trump, and just as hated despite his accomplishments. Below is J.H. Plumb's concluding appraisal of Walpole that brought Trump and his haters to mind.

All that he does and says in the early thirties argues a growing inflexibility of temperament, a greediness to grasp and exercise power; the anxiety lessens, and the future is contemplated less than the present. As a young man his contemporaries spoke of his gaiety, of his ebullient life, of the warmth and spontaneity of his nature. Some of this he never lost. Although he could be the most affable of men, quick to respond to his defeated enemies, this should not blind us to the essential ruthless nature of his political actions. Where he differed from many great men who have wielded political power as great as his, is this: he did not require the death or even exile of men who had vainly crossed his path. Their complete political impotence was all he desired. Nor did great power make him secretive or remote or grossly suspicious of his close friends. … He was available to all from field marshals to ensigns, admirals to midshipmen, archbishops to curates, princes to merchants, so long as they were prepared to wait patiently in the throng that daily besieged his doors. And to his colleagues, and to the Court, he remained open-hearted, generous almost to a fault, retaining his delight in ostentatious display, in gargantuan meals and vast potations; his coarseness, his love of lecherous sally, grew rather than diminished with the years… His frankness, his lack of pretentiousness, were nevertheless tinged with vulgarity, with a gross enjoyment, with almost a delight in stimulating the envy of men. 

Certainly that envy was stirred, more profoundly, more publicly than is the common lot of great men of state. He was hated more for being himself than for his conduct of affairs. Not only was his power resented… his whole manner of life bred detestation wherever he went. He paraded his wealth with ever greater ostentation. He bought pictures at reckless prices, wallowed in the extravagance of Houghton, deluged his myriad guests with rare food and costly wine; his huge ungainly figure sparkled with diamonds and flashed with satin. And he gloried in his power, spoke roughly if not ungenerously of others, and let the whole world know that he was master. Such a way of life invited criticism on a personal level. All the opposition press reveled in portraying the grossness of Walpole’s life; ballads were sung of his ill-gotten wealth; obscene caricatures illustrated his relations with the Queen; bitter pamphlets laid bare the graft, the corruption, the favourtism of his regime…. Year in, year out the gutter Press squirted its filth over his reputation. His friends did little better, the institutions by which he governed worse…. His sole aim in life was to amass gold and aggrandize his family. Day after day, week after week, month after month, this twisted and malicious criticism never ceased: and embedded in the heart of the sludge was a grain of truth, enough indeed for this uncontrolled  propaganda to carry with it a certain conviction. The good that he did—the stability, the peace, the prosperity, were taken for granted—the evil magnified to phantom proportions.

Public life and the institutions of government were thereby brought into disrepute: by 1734 Parliament had lost much of the respect it had enjoyed in the early years of the century; an ever franker acceptance of the greedier side of human nature strengthened self-seeking, weakened altruism and vulgarized politics, until critical issues of state became a matter of personal vendetta…. Each year that Walpole remained in power lowered the standards of public life, for the vituperation and criticism were as responsible as the long years of power for hardening his nature and coarsening his response to life.

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J. H. Plumb. Sir Robert Walpole, the King’s Minister. 1961. Pp. 330-332.