How Haters Actually Win

Rallying behind the Cause with angry vitriol

It’s one thing to state an opinion on a topic. It’s one thing to graciously and respectfully disagree and pose a contrarian point of view. But haters have learned the only way to really win is to hide behind a rapidly growing social movement, be it freedom from racial, sexual or religious persecutions and spew their hatred for those who don’t believe in their Cause.

Yes, this is how they’ve learned to win.

By doling out hatred and ridicule, by mocking, threatening, bullying, and rallying other like-minded haters to do the same. It doesn’t matter whether what was done or said was a bonafide mistake, and apologies and restitution were swiftly made and administered.

No, that’s not good enough for the haters. Because they don’t want to accept the apologies or restitution. In fact, they never did. What they want is revenge. They were born angry, have lived their lives angry, and they want to make somebody pay for the way they feel.

What they’re really hoping the offender does is push back, stand up for themselves even though they’ve already apologized and done their best to make amends.

The haters then can paint this push back as an attack on their civil rights, their sexual or religious beliefs. Their Cause. They can paint the push back no matter how well-intentioned it is, no matter how softly delivered it is, as a vicious homophobic attack or persecution of their racial or religious freedoms.

The haters can spew hate, protected by the sanctity of their Movement with the sole intent to incite other haters to do the same and ultimately topple entire countries.

It’s been done before folks.

Now, let’s level set the playing field here. Not everyone who adamantly eschews change is a hater. A shit ton of them has been cast aside by a privileged mass of haters who don’t give a rat’s ass about them and haven’t for years.

These are the millions of people in this world who have been on the receiving end of hatred, persecution, and oppression for centuries, not just a week or two.

These people aren’t spewing hate. They don’t want to go to war. They’re simply seeking change. Real, honest to God, permanent change. And sometimes, just to get their voices heard over the mob of hate mongers, they have to yell. They have to scream it out.

Stop this shit right bloody now!!

But they’re not hiding behind a cause, using the Movement as a protective barrier from the blowback. They’re standing there at the front of the line, in their best fighting stance, hands on their hips and saying, “you want a piece of me? Bring it.”

And I know in my heart if I offered to sit down at a table and talk about things with them, they’d pull up a chair and we’d discuss as long as it took to come up with a viable solution that worked for both of us.

Because that’s what reasonable people do.

Reasonable people don’t shout hate, or try to demean and intimidate or threaten to destroy someone or something simply because a particular person representing an entire body of other people said or did something stupid.

On the flip side of that.

If the body of people continues to let that person say or do stupid assed things, then the entire governing body of people is just as bad as the one. Soon enough, haters from that group of like-minded shitheads are going to learn how to win, and the crap will start all over again.

I’ve been living on this planet long enough to witness how haters use the Cause they’re aligned with as a shield, knowing if what they do or say incites pushback, they will have the Cause to protect them.

And the Cause, the Movement often does. Sweeping the fact, these haters are vile and as vicious as they wish under the rugs. Letting the haters win because they know their community will never allow someone to attack their precious hate spewing.

Imagine you are part of a herd (pick your own poison when it comes to what kind), and you’ve grown weak and spindly. But the pack refuses to leave you because they know you’ll need protection from predators. But each time they near you trying to protect, you snap at them, bite them and growl viciously.

Ask yourself a question. How long do you think the herd will continue to protect you?

Haters who viciously attack, then run into the protective shadows of a cause or moment, may want to think about this. Eventually, those in that group will realize they need to sit down at the table and demand real change. Not scream retribution and scorn at every turn.

And they will, and we will, and eventually, reasonable people will bring about change. And these haters will suddenly discover they’re exposed with no one to come to their aid.

More importantly, they’ll discover there’s no place in this world for their kind of hatred, for any type of hatred.

Thank you so much for reading. You didn’t have to, but I’m certainly glad you did.

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© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.