A 2020 study, Violent Extremism and Moral Disengagement found that “Violent extremism is commonly conditioned by a variety of psychological processes and mechanisms that when activated… aid implication in extreme behavior, including destructive actions with a large dose of cruelty against people and groups.” Hatred leads individuals to dehumanize those they target, viewing them as less than human, leading perpetrators down a road of cognitive dissonance and a diminished capacity for empathy and making it easier for them to harm others.Hatred is often fueled and reinforced within group dynamics. Group affiliation and conformity plays a significant role in shaping individual attitudes and actions, including a sense of belonging or identity through participation in hateful ideologies or actions. But these feelings can also lead to chronic stress, mental health issues, and difficulties in forming positive interpersonal relationships.
In 1984, George Orwell uses a public daily ritual, Two Minutes of Hate, much the way Trump uses his MAGA rallies to focus personal grievances and anguish onto political enemies du jour. Orwell wrote, through protagonist Winston Smith “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”
Yesterday’s Two Minutes was put together by Charlie Sykes, sponsored by The Bulwark and, at least, directed towards actual villains: Deplorables of The Year— 2023 Hall off Infamy. All DWT readers should be able to identify every face on this collage, a Pantheon of Deplorables that left out Lifetime Deplorables like Señor Trumpanzee and Marjorie Traitor Greene
Like Orwell’s Emmanuel Goldstein (not to be confused with Rahm Emanuel), the grand prize went to Elon Musk, as you could have probably guessed from the graphic. (Only because Trump isn’t eligible.) Musk outpaced everyone else mostly because his anti-Semitism, but also because of his “erratic narcissism” and... this:
Just under Musk were 5 (+ Fox) in the Worst of the Worst category:
Matt Gaetz, “the most hated man in the House”
JD Vance
Fox, Tucker and Rupert— “from COVID disinformation, to the great replacement theory, to pro-Putin propaganda, Fox was a vector of awfulness.”
Tommy Tuberville, “The Senate’s dumbest member”
Other award-winners: MAGA Mike, Vivek Ramaswampy, James Comer, Lindsey Graham, Greg Abbott, Bannon (“at bottom, the fiery, sloppy, self-proclaimed Leninist is just a cheap grifter”), McCarthy (“Has anyone ever sold their manhood so cheaply? And for what?”), Giuliani, RFK, Jr, Stephen Miller and, obviously, George Santos.